


unfortunately, it was paradise

by hellbeast



Series: we are no heroes [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Barely Canon Compliant, Gen, Sephiroth-centric, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:48:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4008193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellbeast/pseuds/hellbeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The truth of it is that Sephiroth is very, very lost.</p><p>His memories of this time, of Before Nibelheim, are clear, but things have gone so far off the beaten path that he has no hopes of guessing what will come next.</p><p>He is not the same Sephiroth that lived this life, and as a strange sort of consequence, this life is not the same as the one he lived.</p><p>He is a stranger within his own skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i will slog over this endless road to its end and my own

**Author's Note:**

> the story goes on! i'd intended to have this up before now, but i was hopelessly stuck in trying to figure out where the story was going. the title, chapters and tone are super loosely (very... very loosely) inspired by _unfortunately, it was paradise_ , a collection of mahmoud darwish poems.
> 
> thanks to all of you for all the kudos and bookmarks and lovely comments!
> 
>  
> 
> [writing/art tumblr](http://manymouths.tumblr.com)

>   
>  _Pero yo ya no soy yo_  
>  _Ni mi casa es ya mi casa._  
> 
> 
> But now I am no longer I,  
>  Nor is my house any longer my house.  
> 
> 
> \- Federico García Lorca

* * *

The days pass, like so:

“How is he today?”

Genesis sneers, but his hands are fluttering anxiously at his sides, useless. He says, “Ask him yourself,” before shouldering past Sephiroth out of the tent.

On the bed, hooked to an array of machines, Angeal rolls his eyes.

“I’m fine, honestly.”

Sephiroth makes a show of glancing from Angeal, to the IV and the catheter and the finger clip and all the tangled wires, and back before raising an eyebrow. Angeal rolls his eyes again.

“You’re nearly as bad as Genesis, you know that?”

“For once, I find myself uncaring of the comparison,” Sephiroth replies, voice as dry as he can make it, “What did Hollander say?”

“My cells aren’t regenerating as quickly as they should be and there’s something wrong with my blood,” Angeal admits, jaw tight. The first step of degradation, Sephiroth knows. The part where it all seems like everything should be easy to fix. And why not? Mako is usual the cure.

Not now, he knows. Now, it is the cause.

It’s been a month since Angeal’s injury and the wound hasn’t healed at all. It’s not a fresh, open wound but even an unenhanced individual would’ve begun to scab over by now. The battles have mostly tapered off, both sides gone to ground in order to lick their respective wounds and bolster their forces for their final attacks. There are low rumors of negotiations. Hollander has mentioned transporting Angeal back to Midgar in hopes of a breakthrough.

Sephiroth has not fought since Genesis’ recovery.

This day is different, because:

Sephiroth finds himself staring at Angeal, at the dour look of defeat on his face, and suddenly saying, “All will be well, Angeal.”

Angeal stares, face slack with surprise. Then his mouth twists wryly.

“You’re not usually one for platitudes. Must be on my deathbed,” The tone is joking, but there is a real, heavy pain in Angeal’s eyes.

“No,” Sephiroth snaps. His eyes do not narrow, and his fists do not clench, but his voice is sharp and commanding, “No, you are not.”

_Not so long as I live._

It is an order, and a promise.

He only hopes that he can keep it.

* * *

The truth of it is that Sephiroth is very, very lost.

His memories of this time, of Before Nibelheim, are clear, but things have gone so far off the beaten path that he has no hopes of guessing what will come next.

He is not the same Sephiroth that lived this life, and as a strange sort of consequence, this life is not the same as the one he lived, so long ago.

He is a stranger within his own skin.

* * *

Hollander runs more tests, an animalistic fear in his eyes. Sephiroth knows that fear is not for Angeal himself, but for what he represents: Hollander’s success. Hollander’s achievements.

The three of them come to despise the way the word “inconclusive” stumbles out from Hollander’s stuttering lips.

* * *

Angeal finds one gray hair, then two, and then seven, and weeps.

* * *

The fighting continues, picking up again after months of mutual retreat. The Wutaians are bringing out their best, in what looks to be a last strike. Soldiers, ninjas, Anti-SOLDIER monsters and even a dragoon or two.

Sephiroth can read the missive loud and clear: Wutai will not bow to ShinRa. If they perish, so be it. At least Wutai will die free.

Angeal’s condition has only worsened. Sephiroth cannot access the Holy Water without leaving the continent. The thought sits heavy on his mind, even as he levels Masamune, the Damascus steel singing in the humid night. The felled Anti-SOLDIER monster keens out its dying breath before falling still. He cannot leave Wutai, neither with Angeal nor without him. He does not have that freedom.

He is a weapon, nothing more than a finely honed blade in the eyes of the President, of the Turks, of Hojo. This, he has known since he was first aware enough to recognize himself as human-like, but never treated like human.

The squadron of warriors lie like the peaceful dead, without regrets. Sephiroth lines up the bodies, closes their eyes, and removes their weapons. Arranges everything evenly under the blooming trees. The same he would do for any fallen member of his own platoon.

Before, he had done it out of spite, knowing that even the smallest measure of self-determination put him one step further out of Hojo’s reach. Now, he does it for respect: of life, of battle, of death.

This, meager though it is, no one can take from him.

* * *

Wutai, much like the rest of this new life, firmly entrenches itself in uncharted territory: leagues upon leagues of Anti-SOLDIER monsters, always supported by shinobi captains and foot soldiers. Waves of them pour from the cracks and crevices of nearly conquered territory. Dragoons - and there are so few, for how extensive the training is - turn up when they least expect it, to devastating results.

Angeal remains bedridden, unhealing and aging. Genesis is near apoplectic.

ShinRa brings in the rest of SOLDIER, of all classes, and the infantry.

The day before he is to be transported back to Midgar's medical facilities, Angeal gives Zack his Buster Sword, despite frantic protests from his student.

“It’s not doing any good at my bedside,” Angeal insists, breathing heavily. He'd barely managed to the lift the blade, and Zack had to scramble to catch it before it hit the ground. Behind Zack’s back, Genesis and Sephiroth exchange grim looks.

* * *

At the next war council, the President jabs a fat finger in Sephiroth’s direction without looking at him, and spits, “Bring me Godo’s head! No, I want the heads of everyone he loves; bring me the whole damn family!”

The others are silent around him, even Scarlet. The Turks are stiff, staring blankly ahead. Outside the council room – as though President ShinRa would ever lower himself to pitch a tent, when he could just raze a forest and put up a building – even the lingering SOLDIERs have gone quiet.

The order is as official as anything that comes from this blubbering, greedy fool, but the lack of a Turk handing him a dossier means they don’t know _who_ they’re targeting. The President just wants Godo to suffer, for whatever measure of violence and destruction that entails.

But Sephiroth was not made to question, only obey. He stares at the President, face blank, until the man begins to sweat. It is only when Tseng’s distant stare begins to focus that he turns, and leaves the building.

The Royal Palace is not too far north of Fort Tamblin. He can make it in a fortnight.

* * *

Genesis is busy near the coast, fretting over Angeal and pretending not to, so Sephiroth takes a handful of Thirds, including Zack.

The boy is almost dour, obviously as worried as Genesis and Sephiroth are about Angeal, whose is an ocean away and likely unimproved.

The sword at his back is both a sight familiar and unpleasant, and Sephiroth has to keep reminding himself that Angeal is not yet dead, and won’t be any time soon, if he has his way.

“Briggs, Farrow, secure the perimeter. Fair, with me.”

The other two Thirds salute and break away to complete their assigned tasks, and Zack falls into step behind him.

The courtyard is empty, and near silent. The soft night breeze stirs the wind chimes on the trees.

Suddenly, a drum beat.

“Silent, stalking the _smelly_ dogs of ShinRa!” A little voice yells. Sephiroth is already drawing Masamune from its sheath – that dark, empty pocket dimension – as the voice continues, drumbeats and childish insults.

A small figure bursts from the canopy, leaping towards them, and in the moonlight, Sephiroth sees that it is a child, in bright yellow, with fiery eyes.

“Sir, _wait_!” Zack hisses, a firm hand on Sephiroth’s arm, halting Masamune. Sephiroth marvels at it: even now, in such strange unknown times, Zack is not so different. The child hits the ground and rolls, coming up into a dramatic pose, but once she sees Masamune glinting in the darkness, and Sephiroth's face, impassive, she stumbles backwards and shrieks:

“The Silver Demon!”

And then, drawing a kunai with trembling false bravado: "Die, ShinRa scum!"

“Whoa, whoa, _whoa_ ,” Zack is gesturing wildly, standing firmly between Sephiroth and this strange, bright little girl, “Everybody, _calm down_!”

“Hey,” Zack murmurs, voice soft and hands open, “You’re Treasure Princess, right? Remember me? I’m one of your… uh… minions.”

Treasure Princess? Minions? What exactly had Zack gotten up to? 

The girl is scurries to hide behind Zack, but even terrified, she sticks her tongue out at him and pulls one eyelid down. It’s a familiar gesture.

He remembers, vaguely, the Wutaian girl that fought with Cloud. Just as loud and reckless, and with a shuriken almost as long as Masamune. He hadn’t realized she was Godo’s daughter.

“This girl,” Zack pleads, “She’s--”

“A child, lost and alone,” Sephiroth cuts in, allowing Masamune’s point to fall.

“No, sir, she’s the prin-”

“She is but a peasant child, Zack.”

The girl’s cheeks puff out in anger, and her mouths opens, clearly to say something ill-advised, so Sephiroth pivots swiftly, taking sharp steps to bring him closer to them both.

“Remember well, Zack, that we have been ordered to _kill_ the Royal Family,” Sephiroth murmurs, ignoring the girl’s strangled gasp to catch Zack’s eye and hold it. Zack clenches his fists, but does not look away.

“But, we do not know who is in the Royal Family,” Sephiroth continues, eyes sliding to the girl, who stares back with fear and hatred and confusion, “and who is _not_.”

Zack is quiet, but his fists fall open loosely.

“So,” Sephiroth goes on, just to drive the point home, “who is this child that you have found?”

It isn’t Zack who answers, but the girl, peeking from around Zack’s legs, more confused now than scared, “Just a peasant, Mister Silver Demon, uh, sir. And, um, there are a lot more orphans and peasants in the Palace! Like a whole bunch!”

Sephiroth smirks.

“Clever child.”

* * *

The girl leads them through the Palace, loudly declaring every person they come across to be a peasant or orphan. No one argues, once they catch sight of Sephiroth and Zack, and the Palace quickly empties.

They finally stop at the throne room.

“Sir,” Zack says, lowly. It’s the first time he’s spoken since they entered the Palace.

“Soon, Zack. Let us finish here, first.”

He can hear Zack nodding, can hear his fists clench around the hilt of Angeal’s Buster Sword. Sephiroth spares the brief thought that probably neither Zack nor Angeal had this in mind for the boy’s first mission.

The girl kicks the doors of the throne room open, like it’s something she does every day. From Godo’s lack of surprise, she just might.

“And that’s the biggest, smelliest, _meanest_ peasant of them all!” the girl crows at Godo, sticking her tongue out again, but Godo only has eyes for Sephiroth.

Sephiroth comes to stop next to the girl – what _is_ her name? had he ever known it? – and touches her shoulder briefly, to stop her rants about the “giant peasant meanie”. Godo’s eyes narrow, but he does not move.

“Not this time.”

The girl rounds on him.

“What? _B-but_!”

Sephiroth calls for Masamune, drawing the hilt from thin air. To the girl, he says, “If there is one thing we know, it is the face of Godo.”

The girl backs away and shakes her head, furiously, eyes falling on him and then her father and then him again.

“B-but, that’s not Godo! That’s, um, he’s just a big, stupid meanie who likes to sit on other people’s thrones!”

Sephiroth notes the panic in her eyes and sighs. He wills Masamune away again and turns to her. His back is nearly to Godo, but Zack steps forward at once, covering the blind spot.

“You did very well,” Sephiroth tells the girl, even as she drags her arm across her face to hide the tears, “but I cannot return empty-handed.”

“You let all the other peasants go,” the girl whimpers, sniffing. Behind them, Godo inhales sharply, “Why can’t he go too? He’s just a stupid peasant. I _swear_ , he’s just a stupid ol' peasant. I **_promise_**.”

“Someone wants Godo’s head, and I am the weapon they have sent to deliver.”

That, at least, she seems to understand, because she spits and blubbers through her tears, “You’re a _monster_.”

Zack shifts behind him, but Sephiroth only agrees.

“Yes.”

His easy agreement throws her off, but only for the briefest of seconds.

“I’m gonna get you,” she promises, little fists shaking in anger, or perhaps hurt, or perhaps fear. Maybe all three. She goes on, voice nasal with tears, “I’m gonna get like super-mega-awesome strong, and, and, I’m gonna _kick your butt!_ ”

It almost makes Sephiroth smile. Before he can reply, Godo speaks up, his voice echoing through the entire room:

“Yuffie. Peasant girl. _Remove your unworthy presence from this Royal Place at once!_ ”

The girl – Yuffie – stares at her father with something like betrayal and sadness and determination. The words ring of some kind of code, but Sephiroth remains immobile and Zack follows his lead. Yuffie ducks around Sephiroth, makes one last rude face, tear-stained at them all before scampering off, her footsteps fading quickly.

Godo stands from his throne, and begins to remove his ostentatious regalia: the heavy outer robes, the crown, the rings.

“So, the Silver Demon of ShinRa is not heartless.”

Sephiroth turns back to Godo, drawing on Masamune again.

“You will find that is the folly of allowing weapons to _think_ ,” he replies. At his back, he can hear Zack shift into a defensive stance.

“You have come to kill the Royal Family?” Godo inquires, pulling off layers of decoration to reveal the battle armor beneath.

“How unfortunate that it seems you are all to be found,” Sephiroth agrees.

Godo laughs, pulling a katana from the wall behind the throne, “Oh, I think I will enjoy this battle very much! Such an _excellent_ way to die.”

* * *

After, hours later, Sephiroth equips a Curaga to heal both himself and Zack. The Third class is sprawled in exhaustion across the steps leading up to the throne, but he spares Sephiroth a tentative smile as the spell washes over them both.

“Are you well?” Sephiroth asks, chastising himself for not bringing Sense with him. Cure spells are all well and good, but it’s harder to know how to heal without knowing what’s wrong.

“I’m fine, General,” Zack raises a hand, as though to ward off Sephiroth’s worry, “But, _man_! That was one helluva fight.”

Sephiroth glances over his shoulder to where Godo’s body lay, and then a little further away, to his head.

“Yes, he was an… honorable opponent.”

Zack sits up, “Heh, you almost sound like Angeal, just now.” 

Sephiroth allows a small smirk to curl his lips as he replies, “It is more fitting to say that Angeal, at times, sounds like _me_.”

Zack’s jaw falls slack, “No _way_. He got that honor crap from **you**? Er, I mean...”

Sephiroth smirks again. It is almost like old (new? future?) times. Almost, but not quite, and he isn’t sure what’s different, obvious circumstances aside.

Zack’s grin fades after a moment, and he brings his elbows to rest on his legs.

“You know, Sir… I gotta ask: why’d you let all the rest of them go?”

So _that’s_ it. Sephiroth meets Zack’s eyes and drawls, “You may call me by my given name, Zack, seeing as we have committed both treason and murder together.”

Zack’s jaw tenses, and his brow furrows, like there’s something he can’t quite understand yet, or something he wants to protest, but he nods.

“As for your question… it is as I told the girl and Godo. I may be ShinRa’s weapon, but I am neither blind nor mindless. The President may bay for blood, but _I_ am the one that must secure the kill. What reason is there to stain Masamune with a child’s blood?”

Zack frowns, “It’s not like I disagree with you, but I mean, we had our orders.”

“Yes,” Sephiroth nods, “Our orders were to kill the Royal Family and all its retainers. How… _strange_ that the Palace was empty but for Godo.”

Zack frowns some more, but eventually gives a joyless, tired laugh.

“Yeah. Strange.”

He looks up at Sephiroth, a wry twist to his mouth that mades him look older. Sadder.

“I dunno how I feel about working for a company that hands out those kinds of orders, Sephiroth.”

“We can only make the most of it,” Sephiroth advises, holding out an arm and then pulling a surprised Zack to his feet, “For we have few other options. After all, we are only tools.”

After securing Godo's head, they exit the throne room. The Palace grounds are just as tranquil as they were before Godo's death. Wutai's Head has been taken, but the land lives on as it did before.

"I suppose we should collect the others and make our report," Sephiroth murmurs. Their footsteps echo in the empty halls.

The war is over - for some measure of the word. It doesn't feel like much of a victory.

* * *

Scarlet and Heidegger turn green at the sight of Godo’s head. Sephiroth has closed his eyes and drained the blood. Were he anything but a severed head, the man could be sleeping.

Hojo is all but preening.

The President, of course, is not happy. He spits and snarls and rants and raves, but Sephiroth remains impassive.

“It took time to secure the perimeter. It is likely that our presence was noted, giving ample time for anyone to escape,” Sephiroth reports, bored.

The weight of Tseng’s stare is curious, but Sephiroth pays him no mind.

Either way, Godo is dead and Wutai is ripe for the taking.

Either way, Sephiroth has done his part.

Either way, they can finally return to Midgar. He can finally heal Angeal.


	2. what a beauty is Damascus if it were not for my wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (it would be so much easier to destroy the Planet than to save it; Before, he never had to _feel_ like this)

>   
>  _I was unfair to you, friend [...]_  
>  _Now it's my right [...] to ask you in friendship:_  
>  _Why did you lean [up]on a dagger to look at me?_  
>    
>  Mahmoud Darwish, _Another Damascus in Damascus_  
> 

* * *

It’s been more than two months since Wutai, nearly six since the initial injury, and Angeal’s condition has only worsened. His hair is gray and brittle, his skin is sallow and he’s thin, loose skin where there used to be muscle. His voice is hoarse more often than not, and his systems are slowly becoming compromised one at a time. Sitting at his bedside is a lesson in mortality and lost hope.

Sephiroth has secured the last of the Holy Water from the stables, but like with Genesis, it sits on his person, unused. Genesis' recovery was easy enough to wave off - Sephiroth has always had the energy for stronger, more complex spells and healing magic was not well-studied. But how would he - could he - explain it if Angeal just so happened to magically return from the cusp of death the moment Sephiroth returned to Midgar? Not to mention, Hollander and his assistants are constantly underfoot, drawing samples and running tests, though the prognosis was clear.

Angeal is dying.

* * *

“Do you suppose,” Genesis, voice sly, corners him one day outside Hollander’s lab, “that you could do for Angeal what you did for me?” 

The vagueness of the question is what makes Sephiroth stop. Genesis, for all his flowery words, has never been one to beat around the bush. Sephiroth looks back over his shoulder. What does Genesis know? Or, at least, what does Genesis _think_ he knows? 

“I imagine that curative and restorative magics were the first things Hollander researched,” Sephiroth keeps his tone even, his voice dry, "And I doubt a Curaga would do much at this stage."

Genesis makes a vague noise from the back of his throat, "I would normally agree with you, but _your_ casting has always been peculiar."

Sephiroth turns all the way around.

"Say what you _mean_ , Genesis," Sephiroth demands.

The coy look vanishes in an instant and the small curl of Genesis’ lips warps into a scowl.

“You did _something_ ,” Genesis accuses, “And whatever it was, it didn’t feel like a Curaga.”

Sephiroth hides a frown. He hadn’t realized that Genesis was still conscious when he’d used the Holy Water.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” he drawls, knowing that it will put Genesis on edge, and hopefully bait him off-topic, “Having never been mortally wounded, I wouldn’t know the _feel_ of a Curaga.”

Genesis snarls, and crowds closer to Sephiroth, uncaring of his height, “Do you think this is funny? Angeal is **dying** , and you’re baiting me? You know something--”

“What do I know, Genesis? What _could_ I know? I am the same as you, loathe as I am to admit it, waiting for _someone_ to figure out something.”

“ _You_ know something,” Genesis hisses, unrelenting, “And you’re doing nothing.”

“What would you have me do?” Sephiroth hisses back, frustrated.

“ _ **Anything!**_ ” Genesis shouts. Somewhere within the labs, something shatters.

Sephiroth clenches his teeth and looks away.

“Anything,” Genesis says again, slower, but no less harshly. “If you have the power, or the knowledge to do anything, I would have you do it.”

“I don’t,” Sephiroth insists. Gaia only knows what Hojo would do if he got his hands on even the smallest sample of Holy Water.

Genesis’ face twists up into something ugly and feral. In his eyes, there is something like hate, like betrayal, like disappointment. He looks at Sephiroth like he would an enemy. It makes Sephiroth feel… cold. And small.

As he stalks off, Genesis spits, “Will you let Angeal die unless he _begs_? Some hero.”

The words—they’re not true, and Sephiroth has never called himself a hero, but—something in Sephiroth recoils furiously at them, his fingers curling into tight fists of their own volition. Angeal is his friend, one of the few he has, and Sephiroth refuses to watch him waste away again, helplessly—but, then again, isn’t that what he’s been doing?

He feels cold, and small, and lost. Dazed. Wounded. Somehow, he manages to walk away.

* * *

The thing is, Sephiroth admits to himself, Genesis is _right_.

And yet Sephiroth still does not know what to do.

* * *

Some days later – Sephiroth has long since stopped paying mind to calendars in this life and the last – Hollander pulls him aside. 

“Well,” the man hems and haws, sweat on his brow. He’s always been wary of Sephiroth in a way he never was of Angeal or Genesis. Sephiroth was never able to work out if it was because of Hojo or not. 

“Yes, well, there hasn’t been much progress, you know,” Hollander blusters, hands making half-hearted motions. He has a clipboard full of Angeal’s medical charts, illegible scribbles in the margins and small sticky notes over some of the charts. 

“As you can see, he’s been deteriorating rather steadily, considering the level of degredation…” Hollander drones on, as though Sephiroth hasn’t been at Angeal’s bedside since the the moment he returned to Midgar. 

Barely half-listening, Sephiroth waits for the man to get to the point. Something sits low and tight in Sephiroth’s chest, like he’s preparing for a blow. Angeal hasn’t gotten any better, but his condition has worsened predictably, uniformly. 

So what could Hollander need to discuss with him? 

Sephiroth hasn't seen Angeal in almost two weeks, mainly to avoid another confrontation with Genesis, but, what if--? No. No, Sephiroth knows the way of degradation and it vary rarely deviates from it's unhurried pace. But then, what--?

“You know, my boy,” Hollander clears his throat abruptly, squaring his shoulders, “Genesis has assured me that you have the cure. I don’t know what Hojo’s told you but, you needn’t hesitate to hand it over! I’m afraid Angeal won’t last that much longer, at this rate.”

Seconds stretch into eons. Sephiroth breath stutters out of him, choppy and strangled. His hands are shaking in small, fine motions.

 _'Genesis has assured me'_. Genesis had… he had…

Something thick and heavy sits in the back of his throat, jagged and stinging.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Professor.” His voice sounds like it’s coming from beneath the ocean. He can hear the waves – turbulent and fast-moving – in his ears. 

Hollander says something, face pale and arms frantic, and Sephiroth replies without any conscious thought of what he’s saying. Hollander sputters and blusters and apologizes and mentions something about not bothering Hojo. 

Gaia, _Hojo_. 

Sephiroth can only hope that Hollander and Genesis – Genesis, who had… 

Sephiroth can only hope that no one said anything to Hojo. The last thing Sephiroth needs, the last thing _anyone_ needs is that man snooping around looking for something "interesting". 

Hollander is still stuttering about something or the other when Sephiroth walks away. The world around him seems faint, pale and wrung out. He makes it back to his quarters, somehow, waves crashing in his ears. 

* * *

Guilt and shame and betrayal and anger and hurt sit slick and heavy in his throat, throbbing in his temples, _choking_ him— 

That Genesis would go to Hollander, that he wouldn’t take Sephiroth at his word— 

But then, Sephiroth had been lying, had been _waiting_ , while Angeal wasted away by the day— 

(it would so much easier to destroy the Planet than to save it; Before, he never had to _feel_ like this) 

Sephiroth breaks three of his fingers on his left hand – neatly, the snap of bones almost soft in the cold silence of his room – and the pain shocks him out of his virulent emotions for a moment. He needs to _think_ , not just about Genesis and Angeal, but about himself, because he has never done anything in his life without a purpose. 

Retrieving the first aid kit from the closet and setting his fingers gives him the time to breathe. His fingers tingle as the mako mends the bones. 

_**Think**_. 

Why did he wait to heal Genesis? Simple: to avoid the curiosity of Hojo. Or, was it to keep things as he remembered them? Was it both? 

But why such secrecy? His first actions in returning were to plan - extensively - to save Angeal and Genesis, but the thought of telling the two of them never crossed his mind. He didn’t have to tell them everything, but why not tell them about the Holy Water? There was no love lost between the three of them and their respective creators. Sephiroth only sought out Hojo at the command of Lazard or the President. And Angeal and Genesis never went to Hollander for anything less than mortal injuries. 

Except, Genesis had— 

_(since their inception, three little boys had forged brotherhood from blood and pain, unified themselves against the Planet and the scientists who created them, **unified** themselves and trusted **only** in themselves--)_

No, _focus_.

Avoiding Hojo’s curiosity was a valid reason, but _why_? Who was Hojo to cause such fear in _him_ —he, who has died and died again, once eternally stuck in that cycle of mad, alien science? Hojo was his bane, but what was Hojo in the face of Angeal’s death? Nothing. Angeal and Genesis meant far more to him than Hojo’s ire or interest. They always have. They always _should_.

So, what stayed his hand in Wutai? When did he become so... _fearful_ , so idle? This life was his true second chance. He doubted he would get a third.

Was it really a second chance if he spent every moment of it in worry? Why was he so concerned with keeping things nearly the same, knowing that it led to his downfall?

When had he ever let his fear rule him? When had he ever truly _feared_?

_(and that voice - soft and gentle - whispers to him, **my son**...)_

Stop. Focus.

What is the point in trying not to change too much? Now that he thinks about it, it seems… redundant. Why try to adhere to the old past, when the old past left him bereft and alone, the backs of his loved ones in the distance, always walking, flying, running _away from him_?

_**Focus.** _

What would be the point in the Planet—a force so powerful, so wondrous—in returning him to this time, if it meant for him to repeat the same gestures, voice the same words as before?

Even Before, he had thought: I want to kill Hojo. I want Angeal and Genesis to live. I want them both to come back. I want to go with them. I want this pain to stop.

_(his face newly scarred, zack swings the buster sword idly, looking for all the world like a man bereft and for one dire, sudden second, all sephiroth wants is to scream at angeal _ **why**_ but angeal is dead and gone and zack still has tears in his eyes even if they never fall and sephiroth wants to scream and curse and destroy because they were supposed to be **happy** \--)_

Now, he has the means and the opportunity to make those desperate, fragile wishes reality. He can save Angeal and Genesis. They don’t have to leave. None of them need to die. Zack does not have to cry, and Sephiroth does not have to rage.

(they can be _happy_ )

He can do that: he can change _everything_. But he’s been hesitant, too cautious, too—too cowardly.

_Why?_

* * *

It’s far past visiting hours when he slips into Angeal’s room. The hallways of the medical facility are dark and silent, the scientists and doctors all gone for the day. At night, everything is run and monitored remotely.

Angeal’s breathing is even, but not deep, so Sephiroth closes the door firmly behind him.

“You’re here late,” Angeal slurs, voice muzzy and lethargic.

“I’ve been lax in visiting,” Sephiroth apologizes, pulling a chair closer to the bed.

“What have you done now?” Angeal asks, his head turning slowly to face Sephiroth. His gray hair almost disappears into the muted white bedsheets, “Genesis was in here last week, ranting about how selfish you are. Did you go see LOVELESS without him or something?”

That pain - that hurt, that _betrayal_ \- still lances through him, but Sephiroth manages a small smile and deflects, “Or something.”

(still, a small part of him whispers, _but who betrayed who?_ )

Angeal hums, then shifts, pressing buttons until the mattress starts to whir and shift, propping him upright.

“So, what does the General of SOLDIER need with an old man like me?”

Angeal smiles when he says it, but he looks like he wants to die. He looks like he did Before, when he convinced himself he was a monster. When he all but threw himself upon Zack’s sword.

“Stop,” Sephiroth commands lowly, “Don’t speak of yourself that way.”

“Look at me. I can’t even sit up on my own. A few more weeks, Hollander says, and the dementia will probably set in. I probably won’t make it another three months…”

They sit in silence for a brief moment. Angeal’s breathing is labored with age, with exhaustion, with the faint edge of tears.

“I want to apologize, for waiting this long,” Sephiroth tells him, hands folded demurely in his lap. He wants to beg Angeal's forgiveness, but he can't. If he has to explain himself aloud-- even the thought of trying is almost enough to send him flying apart at the seams.

"It's fine," Angeal makes a small gesture with shaking hands, "I'd rather not watch the two of you bicker like children."

The dry, familiar tone makes Sephiroth laugh, but he goes on, "Not that, though I should've been here regardless."

“If not that, then what?” Angeal asks, wary.

“I was afraid of the consequences,” Sephiroth admits, after a moment, “because they will be unknown to me. But I have come to realize that this is _all_ unknown to me. What are a few consequences more, weighed against your life?”

“Sephiroth,” Angeal cuts in, struggling to push himself further upright on thin, shaking arms, “Wait, are you saying you know what this is—?”

“I don’t know what is going to happen to me, Angeal, and it… frightens me. After all, the last time I lost control of myself…”

He had left Genesis to rot, had sent Zack to kill Angeal with his own hands. Had forced Zack to kill him, as well, no matter that it was Cloud who succeeded. Had died. Again and again.

He had tried to raze the Planet to the ground. Had almost succeeded.

Will this time be any different? Does it matter, if that means saving Angeal?

He knows the answer to that. He's _always_ known the answer.

_(brotherhood forged in blood and pain; angeal's hands firm at his back lowering them both gently to the ground; angeal lanky and not yet a man grown, muttering that perhaps there is something to this **honor** after all; angeal who has never doubted him, angeal who would level mountains to see him smile, angeal weary older soul so near to his heart--)_

“—know anything, please,” Angeal is pleading, _begging_ , with tears in his eyes, and Sephiroth feels like the lowest of the low, scum of the Planet who cannot even save his friends without causing them pain, “This—this isn’t how I want to—”

“If I don’t see you again,” Sephiroth begins, no louder than a murmur, but Angeal falls silent all the same, “Know that you are dear to me: you and Zack and Genesis. I care for you.”

“Sephiroth, what are you—?”

Sephiroth casts the Sleep wordlessly, watching Angeal struggle against it before falling limp. It should hold until morning. With deft hands, he quickly detaches and opens the saline drip, pouring the solution down the tiny sink tucked into the corner. He refills it with the Holy Water, reattaches it, and leaves.

As he walks, he flexes his sore fingers. So simple. It was _so easy_ to save Angeal’s life, and Sephiroth almost didn’t. He almost let Angeal _**die**_ , because of that fear. He doesn't deserve Angeal's forgiveness, and he'll never ask for it. Not for doing what he should've. Not when it was so _easy_.

Genesis’ words still sit heavy on his mind, his actions still sit upon Sephiroth’s chest like a knife buried to the hilt, but now he feels… a little lighter.

If he can save Angeal, he can kill his fears. Easy as that.

* * *

Hojo’s private lab is sterile and white and silent. All the experiments – caged or floating in mako – are unconscious or unmoving.

“Sephiroth,” Hojo calls out, not bothering to look up from whatever – whoever – he’s dissecting, “This is unexpected.”

Sephiroth takes his time. He pauses at each cage, tries to remember what became of each experiment. Most of them, he knows, died. He had always wondered, what exactly Hojo had been doing with all his other experiments. Sephiroth was considered a perfection, a success that launched the entire SOLDIER program, and a gamut of clones after his death.

What else did Hojo have the need to experiment for? At times, Sephiroth thinks that perhaps it is not _need_ that drives these experiments, and shudders.

Sephiroth looks down at his own hands: long and delicate fingers, round cuticles, nails neatly trimmed. Pale skin, almost sickly. What makes this—him—perfect? He is sinew and muscle wrapped around bone without a purpose. He has no soul, no drive.

That, he supposes, might be the point. Perfection is hardly objective. For Hojo, who holds himself to nothing so limiting as morals, perfection is obedience and control.

The only thing Sephiroth has ever considered successful about himself is his ability to wield Masamune. It was the first thing he ever _worked_ for, in a life where all needs were given to him clinically, and with expectations.

“Surely you didn’t come down here for the company,” Hojo muses, his voice dry and nasal over the sound of parting flesh.

“I did not,” Sephiroth agrees, staring at one of the caged experiments. Something about it—large and furred, with heavy muscle and a parted maw to show sharp fangs—tickles at his memory. Hadn’t Cloud fought alongside some sort of creature?

Hojo pulls a tarp over the body and pulls the gloves from his hands. His skin is sallow under the harsh artificial lighting, and his stooped posture and long limbs only make him look more like the caricature of a mad scientist.

“Come, then,” Hojo snaps, tossing the gloves away, “The body won’t keep for longer than an hour.”

Sephiroth does not need an hour. He turns away from the caged creature and its bright red fur, and takes measured steps, stopping a good ten feet from Hojo’s back. Even as a child, he never liked to get any closer.

“A shame you’ll never get back to it,” he murmurs aloud, though too low for Hojo to discern, staring hard at the line of Hojo’s spine.

“Speak up,” Hojo barks immediately, and then mumbles to himself, knowing that Sephiroth can hear him, “I didn’t give you two vocal chords so you could _mutter_.”

“It’s about Angeal,” Sephiroth lies, ignoring the aside.

“Yes, Hollander was in here weeks ago, convinced I had a cure because _my_ subjects weren’t experiencing the same phenomena. The man never did accept that his science was just _flawed_ ,” Hojo chuckles, and then he tosses a glance over his shoulder, “Well, has the failure died yet? I acquired the rights to do the initial autopsy.”

Sephiroth should’ve come here sooner. Far sooner.

“Do you remember that day, Professor?” Sephiroth asks, forcing his limbs to relax. The idea of Angeal on Hojo’s autopsy table is revolting, but it’s an empty threat. Angeal is fine, even if no one but Sephiroth realizes it yet.

“What—?” Hojo demands, brows drawn low and mouth set in a scowl, turning towards him. He hates asking questions almost as much as he hates being asked them.

When Sephiroth first began to wield Masamune, the hardest part for him was summoning it. All told, no one is entirely sure of the particulars of the blade. It’s legendary for a reason, and so few have had the chance to wield it, let alone study it.

Where does Masamune rest when it’s not being used? How was such a pocket dimension forged and what rules govern it? Is Masamune the only thing to exist there? Why is Masamune incapable of being sheathed, unless within the aforementioned pocket dimension?

Nearly twenty years Sephiroth has had the blade, and he is no closer to answering some of those questions than he was as a recalcitrant five year old.

When Sephiroth was 8, there was a training accident. Back then, he trained with the Turks. Or rather, the Turks trained with him. At any rate, Hojo had instructed him to become more proficient at summoning Masamune: more quickly, more fluidly, at a distance, without looking. Hundreds of ways to prepare for ambushes, full-frontal assaults, disarming his opponent and more.

That particular day, he had been trying to master summoning the blade from a distance. He found it easiest to summon Masamune directly into his hand, usually hilt-first. But, the Turks had argued, what if his hands were otherwise occupied or inaccessible? They wanted him to learn how to summon the sword and control its movements, _without_ his hands.

On that day, Sephiroth almost succeeded. He summoned Masamune not in his hand, but instead called it _to_ his hand from across the room. The hammerspace trembled, but slowly and surely, the blade appeared: hilt forming and sliding out of its pocket dimension, across the room and into Sephiroth’s waiting palm, the blade following soon after.

One Turk clapped. A few others stared.

The unfortunate Turk that Sephiroth had summoned Masamune _through_ coughed wetly, before collapsing. Hojo, of course, had labeled that session a failure, and Sephiroth underwent two weeks of invasive mako treatments as a result.

Now, some fifteen years and several lifetimes later, Sephiroth finds himself smiling. He imagines it is not a pleasant smile.

“It’s better if I just show you,” he assures Hojo, and then he _pulls_.

After decades of wielding it, Masamune would normally come to him easily and quickly. But this time, he wants the blade to arrive slowly. Painfully.

Hojo’s face is blank, if not vaguely alarmed. After all, Sephiroth is not normally the sharing type.

Sephiroth watches, as first, the scientist’s torso begins to shift. Ribs and clavicle. They shift and stretch before the expanding pocket dimension becomes too much and they snap under the pressure. Hojo's chest bulges and deflates, and the smell of blood rises in the air as some of the broken ribs pierce the flesh outward.

Blood bubbles up in Hojo’s mouth, spilling over lax, open lips.

“You—” Hojo gurgles, his voice thick. Likely because of his collapsing lungs. He remains unmoving, despite the pain he must be in.

“Me,” Sephiroth agrees.

Were it not for the fact that Hojo is a man of science and rarely keeps weapons on his person, Sephiroth would feel unease. Even as he is slowly being killed from the inside out, Hojo stands steady, observing and unmoving.

The front of Hojo’s lab coat is slowly staining red, bulging forward again as the hilt of Masamune finally materializes, pulling itself towards Sephiroth’s open, waiting palm.

Hojo chokes and gasps as the blade materializes – not from the guard, as it normally would, but from the point. The hilt fits itself neatly into the grooves of Sephiroth’s palm just as the point pulls itself from Hojo’s torso. The rest of the blade slides into corporeality, unstained and gleaming.

Hojo’s lips twist up into an ugly, cruel smile. He never makes a move to defend himself.

He dies without speaking further, but Sephiroth knows what word was on his lips.

 _Perfection_.

* * *

The sun has nearly risen when he makes his way down to the church.

He’s exhausted. He has finally set things right: Angeal is cured, Genesis has long since been so and Hojo is dead. Yet he feels as though he has been thoroughly wrung out.

 _Perfection_.

Hojo died without speaking, but all Sephiroth can hear is his oily voice and that one, damning word.

He strides into the church and collapses on one of the sturdier benches, lost in his own thoughts, his own anger, his own… what? Loss? The idea makes him scowl. Hojo was not a thing he had nor wanted that could be _lost_. Perhaps it is that now, more than ever, he is lost. He can't prepare for what he doesn't know, and there it no way to predict for the fallout of Hojo's death. But Angeal is healed. Zack will never have to take up the Buster Sword in the name of the dead--

“Oh! Um…”

He hadn’t even bothered to check whether or not the church was empty. He’s getting careless.

“Apologies, I should’ve—” he stares. He knows he’s staring, but can’t help it.

“… knocked,” he adds on lamely, an awkward silence too late.

“That’s alright,” Aerith— _the Flower Girl_ , the One True Cetra—assures him, smiling hesitantly, “I’m sure we can share just fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've actually been sitting on this chapter for a few weeks b/c i couldn't decide on the order of a couple of the scenes.
> 
> thank you all so much for all your lovely comments and kudos!!
> 
>  
> 
> [writing/art tumblr](http://manymouths.tumblr.com)


	3. interlude: the dreamers pass from one sky to another

> _Butterfly! sister of yourself, be what you desire_  
>  _before my longing, and after._  
>  _But let me be a brother to your wing, that my madness might remain fevered._  
>  _Butterfly, born of yourself,_  
>  _don’t let others decide my fate. Don’t abandon me._  
> 
> 
> Mahmoud Darwish, _The Dreamers Pass from One Sky to Another_  
> 

* * *

(Angeal wakes up, and later, that will be his first clue.)

He wakes up the same way he has for the past six months: eyes stuck together and muscles stiff with pain and to the sound of beeping machines. Only… that’s not quite true.

He blinks his eyes open, muscles aching and throat incredibly dry, and Genesis’ face but a few scant inches away.

Angeal chokes on a curse, head jerking backwards in surprise, even as Genesis says: “We weren’t sure you would wake.”

Angeal’s fingers twitch upwards reflexively, to press at the growing – _constant_ – migraine in his temples, only… there is no migraine. The fluorescent hospital lights are nearly too bright, the hospital sheets are threadbare and coarse on his skin, in the halls he can hear the passing feet of scientists and nurses and—

Angeal curses again.

“Angeal?”

Angeal pushes himself upright with an ease he hasn’t had in months, a strength he had almost forgotten, and brings his hands up to his face. He’s gotten used to the way that his wrists jut out and his fingers curl with premature arthritis. But now…

Now, his hands have regained some of their width, fingers straight and unhindered by joint pain. He can see the swirls and loops of his individual fingerprints, the fine hairs along his knuckles. He pauses for a moment – just a moment – and there is no residual _**hurt**_.

Frantically, his hands move to his chest, his sides, his thighs. Gripping flesh, poking and testing for sore spots. There are none.

It’s not quite the same as he was before – he’s lost so much muscle, and his skin is clammy and pale – but…

_But._

“Angeal, _say_ something!” Genesis demands, hands fluttering nervously, looking for wounds to soothe. But there are none. _There are none_.

Angeal catches Genesis’ eye, can feel the sting of tears in his own.

“Genesis, the degradation…. I think it’s _gone_.”

* * *

Aerith never put much stock into Tseng’s warnings.

Now though, with a man sitting in the church – and with silver hair like that, there’s really only one man he _could_ be – she wonders if maybe she should’ve paid more attention to them.

Still, there’s no use in putting up much of a fuss.

“Have you come to take me to the professor?” She asks, her voice pleasant and her tone level, even as her hands shake above the blooming flowers.

The man stares at her – hasn’t _stopped_ staring since she spoke up, really – and replies, “The professor is currently… indisposed.”

Aerith brings a hand up to her chest almost automatically, letting her sigh of relief drag all the air from her chest.

“Thank goodness!” She laughs, though it isn’t funny. The man – what had Tseng called him? A general of some sort? – looks away.

“Though,” Aerith continues, feeling brave now, “If you’re not here to take me away, I’m not sure what Mister ShinRa could want with little ol’ me.”

The General swallows, so slowly that she can hear it. He looks like he’s having a rough time of it. He’s got deep circles under his eyes and she’s not sure he should be that pale and even as he sits regally on the pew, his shoulders fall concave, drawing his torso in. Like he’s trying to make himself smaller, or disappear.

“I’m not here on orders. And I’m not here to kill you,” the General tells her, voice grave, “Not…”

The last word is so soft she can barely make it out. But she does.

_Not again._

It sends little shivers down her spine, the idea that the General has killed someone like her—someone hiding from Hojo—and over the rush of her thoughts, Gaia turns her heavy gaze upon them both.

The Planet’s presence is soothing—too big to comprehend and all-seeing—and she relaxes despite herself. The three of them sit in silence, Aerith pruning the plants and pulling weeds and the General gazing hard at the old, worn wood of the building and Gaia, waiting.

The hours pass like that, until night has come and gone and the slums awaken around them. The General sits so still, it’s almost uncanny. She wouldn’t be surprised if she turned around only to find him gone, he’s that quiet. The only sounds are her even breaths and the leaves of the flowers brushing against each other. But somehow, even without looking, she knows he’s still there, staring at the broken stained glass windows like they hold the answers to all his troubles.

“Are you alright?”

It takes her a moment to recognize her own voice. The General’s gaze slides over to meet hers, face empty but practically radiating utter bemusement. Aerith almost blushes, but well, she had wanted to know, even if she hadn’t meant to ask.

“It’s just,” she continues, wiping her hands on her dress, “that you look a little… down.”

“I could be… better,” he tells her gravely, after twenty long minutes of silence.

And then he leaves.

Almost as quick as a blink, he's up on his feet before she even realizes that he's moving, and out the door with nothing more than a swish and a rustle of his long, black coat.

Aerith scrambles up after him, nearly trips herself by stepping on the end of her dress, but when she makes it outside, there street is empty. Quiet.

* * *

Tseng resists the urge to rub his temples, but only barely.

“Again,” he says, even as he begins to draft yet another requisitions form.

Reno shrugs, mag rod held aloft.

“Shit’s all kinda fucked up, Boss,” he reports, twirling the rod for emphasis, “Monthly check in came in fine on the first, but now everything is offline and we got no idea how long it’s been that way. But hey, I overheard some of the nurses gossipin’ this morning. Sounds like our boy Hewley made some kinda miraculous recovery.”

At that, Tseng looks up.

“Hewley? Hasn’t he been--?”

“In a coma for nearly a month? Yeah. But whatever put him under was apparently fixin’ him up real good. He woke up a few days ago, like the last four months never happened.”

“Four?”

_Only four? _he means. Hewley's been out of commission far longer than that.__

“Yeah, not a complete recovery, but he’s a damn sight better than he was three weeks ago.”

Which means that Hewley probably looks closer to 30 than he does to 80. Tseng knows nothing of the science behind SOLDIER—and doesn’t want to know, honestly—but the way the First Class had aged so rapidly had unsettled him.

Tseng hums.

“What did Hollander have to say?”

Reno shrugs, tapping the mag rod to his shoulder rhythmically, “Dunno. He took samples and holed up in his lab. Rhapsodos looks like he’s a stone’s toss away from burning the hospital down.”

Focus. Tseng closes his eyes for a brief moment, and when he opens them again he levels Reno with a hard look.

“Hey,” Reno defends, both hands coming up, “I figure _some_ good news and maybe I’d get to sleep this week.”

“The _surveillance_ , Reno,” Tseng bites out.

“I’m _goin’_ ,” Reno whines back, tossing a messy, half-hearted salute over his shoulder as he slinks out the room.

Tseng sighs, signs the form and then says:

“Watch Hewley.”

Rude doesn’t reply, just closes the door behind him when he leaves.

* * *

He comes back.

The General, that is. Every other day, he returns, always looking a little startled to see her there. After the sixth or so time, she can almost set a clock to him. After a couple weeks, he doesn't even bother leaving.

They never talk much, but every time he arrives, Gaia’s awareness settles over her own like armor. But as cautious as the Planet seems to be, there is never any direct action taken against the General. Not so much as whisper of warning, like there was about Tseng and his Turks.

Gaia simply watches them both, silent and assessing.

The fifth time that the General comes back, he brings someone with him.

“He needs a place to hide until he can return to his… hometown,” the General explains, “His name is…”

“Nanaki,” Nanaki supplies.

Nanaki is bright red and furred and four-legged and is some kind of creature that Aerith has never seen nor imagined in her life. Nanaki can _talk_. Nanaki’s tail is _on fire_.

“Um,” she warbles—feeling a little hysterical, because even standing there calmly, Nanaki is practically radiating predator—and twists her hands in the fabric of her dress, “He’s welcome to stay here?”

His teeth are probably as big as her _hands_.

“He was once caged in Hojo’s lab as an experiment. It did not… rest well with me to leave him there,” the General continues, as though it’s Nanaki’s _credibility_ she’s concerned about. Honestly, the man is hopeless.

Even so, she can’t help but question: “Was? Has... something happened to Hojo?”

Nanaki turns his one good eye to the General, something like surprise on his face. Or, she thinks it’s surprise. She’s not used to recognizing expressions when muzzles and furred ears and whiskers are involved.

The General frowns, rolling the downward tilt of his lip left and right in indecisiveness. Finally, he tells her: “The professor remains… indisposed.”

This time, she recognizes the tone, if not the words themselves, from Tseng and all those years ago when she asked what had happened to her father.

She doesn’t ask again.

* * *

After two weeks of tests and blood samples and more tests and the firm insistence of bed rest, Angeal finally decides to test the waters:

“Are you and Sephiroth still arguing?”

Genesis frowns and then scoffs and then frowns again, leaning back in his chair by Angeal’s bedside.

“It wasn’t an argument, merely a… disagreement. A difference of opinion.”

“Also known as the literal definition of an argument,” Angeal points out, dryly.

“Well then fine, I suppose we are.”

Angeal barely resists the urge to throw his hands up. When it comes to Sephiroth, it’s almost like Genesis can’t help but to act so petulantly. But he has to know; _needs_ to know. The last thing he remembers, before he apparently fell into a coma… it doesn’t bode well.

“What's the argument about?”

Genesis gives a loud, entirely too dramatic, put-upon sigh, throwing his head back, as though blocking Angeal from view will make him stop asking.

“Must we do this _now_ , Angeal?”

“Well, considering the fact that Sephiroth has probably been avoiding a visit for fear of running into you, I would say yes. It’s been more than a _month_ , Genesis.”

Genesis heaves out another sigh, but before he can open his mouth to say something no doubt ridiculous, Zack knocks on the frame of the open door.

“Knock, knock,” he quips, a small smile on his face, “I come bearing outside food.”

“Ah!” Genesis grabs the opportunity presented with both hands, already halfway out the door when he calls back: “Excellent idea, I’ll go grab drinks!”

Zack falls into the abandoned chair, setting the bag of food and tray of drinks – and there’s no way Genesis _didn’t_ realize Zack already had them – on the table next to the bed.

“So,” Zack asks coyly, propping his chin up on his fist, “What conversation is he avoiding now?”

Angeal lets out a sigh of his own, pressing his palm to his temple, “Whatever reason he has for giving Sephiroth the cold shoulder. For months, apparently.”

“Y’know, I used to be completely awestruck by you guys,” Zack’s voice is wistful, but his isn’t even trying to hide the smirk stretched across his face, “Until I realized Genesis acts more like my nine year-old cousin that my Commanding Officer. And that you’re more like a naggy old grandpa. Sephiroth’s probably the only one who actually deserves his fancy office.”

“I miss those days, too,” Angeal scowls, though his lips almost twitch into a smile, “When you actually used to show me some _respect_.”

“If you say so, old man,” Zack tells him sweetly, with a grin that could out-devil Ifrit himself.

“I oughta demote you, you little punk,” Angeal shakes a reprimanding finger.

A pause.

When Genesis comes back – thirty minutes later and _without any drinks_ , Zack will tease – they’re still laughing.

* * *

“So, uh, it’s way fuckin’ worse than we thought,” is the first thing Reno says, when Tseng walks into his office to find the redhead sitting on his desk.

“How bad is ‘ _way fuckin’ worse_ ’, Reno?”

Reno grins, sharp and quick, because he considers any day that he makes Tseng curse to be a Good Day. Thankfully, he sobers up before Tseng has to say anything.

“Pretty fuckin’ bad, Boss. Comms went down on the 3rd and we still can’t get ‘em back up. We’re flyin’ blind as far as Wutai is concerned.”

Tseng closes the door behind him, and locks it. Flips a switch on his way to the desk and can hear the white noise generators kick on.

“We knew it was a risk,” he murmurs with a calm he has perfected over the years, “We were lucky enough to get surveillance for as long as we did.”

“Sure,” Reno waves a hand, as if to wave Tseng’s calm out of his face, “Except for the part where most of the refugees up and vanished.”

Tseng bites back a curse, barely.

“Next time, Reno, _start with that_.”

Reno, ignoring his ire with a practiced ease, rolls his eyes even as he says, “Yeah, so, most of ‘em are gone and lemme tell you, Boss, you are not gonna like where they went.”

Tseng can already feel a migraine coming on.

“Western continent.”

“Western continent,” Reno confirms, wry twist to his mouth, “ _And_ Eastern continent. We could try trackin’ ‘em down, except that kinda crack down isn’t gonna do any favors in the PR department.”

Tseng is quiet, letting the artificial white noise fill the silence. Reno, still perched languidly on his desk, waits.

Finally, Tseng says, “Have Cissnei gather a handful of operatives. Don’t bother with the small towns yet: stick to Rocket Town, the Golden Saucer, Junon and Midgar. There’s no way we’ll get them all, but perhaps we can… stymie the flow, get a leg up on… whatever it is they’re doing.”

“So we’re just gonna start hounding all the Wutaians across the continents? Kinda harsh, Boss,” Reno drawls, tossing Tseng a look over his shoulder. He loves playing Devil’s Advocate when Tseng starts planning.

“No, not Wutaians. _All_ recent immigrants, even the intercontinental ones. We don’t know what the refugees are up to, or with who or how. Anyone who has so much as contemplated moving to a bigger city is suspect.”

Reno grins, sharp toothed and eager to hunt. Tseng spares a moment of sympathy for Rude: Reno’s going to run his partner ragged, scouring the slums inch by inch.

The redhead slinks off his desk, bright eyed.

“You got it, Boss.”

* * *

“He killed Hojo,” Nanaki tells her of the General, one dark eye peering up at her from a red, furred face, “I didn’t see it, but I can smell the blood on him.”

Aerith picks a handful of flowers, bright and alive, to give to the sick child down the road. His mother can’t afford the medicine and Aerith only knows so much about healing. And it’s not like any of them have access to materia, not down here.

“I know,” Her voice doesn't waver, and she's proud of the way her hands don't shake, even though the thought of the General killing someone is… frightening. If only because she knows how easily he could do it, “Or well, I figured.”

They sit in silence for a little while longer, until:

“I don’t know what to make of him,” Nanaki admits, tail lashing back and forth. Through trial and error - and a lot of internal distress on Aerith’s part - they’ve learned that Nanaki’s tail doesn’t burn anything he doesn’t want it to. If nothing else, the church and the flowers are thankful of _that_.

“The only thing Tseng ever told me was: if a man with silver hair ever found me, to kill myself,” Aerith blurts, and she had to stop herself from clapping her hands to her mouth. It’s already out there.

Very pointedly looking down at the flowers—and not looking over at Nanaki, who has gone so, so still—she continues, “He told me I wouldn’t be able to run, or talk my way out of it. But that if _that_ man came for me, it meant I was going to Hojo. And that it was better to die first."

She twists the stems of the flowers between her shaking fingers, blinks the unshed tears out of her eyes.

“I don’t know why the General killed Hojo, or how he found me…. but I’m glad. Of both.”

Nanaki is quiet and still for a moment longer. Aerith has almost put it out of her mind when he whispers, “I could say the same.”

* * *

It’s been a little over two months since the General first came, and a little over four weeks since he brought Nanaki, when a young man with a bright smile falls through the roof of the church, and thinks Aerith an angel.

(And she thinks _him_ one in return)

* * *

The General is here again, Nanaki notes as he enters the main room of the church. The General is the only one who smells of leather and metal and, very faintly, of blood. The man is sitting as his usual pew—the second to last on the left, nearly out of sight of the door—and contemplating the shattered windows. What little glass remains in the large wooden frames tells the end of how Gaia came to be, swirling green Lifestream and all.

For once, they two are alone. Aerith is running errands for her mother and her neighbors and probably a few friends as well, and Nanaki is tending to the flowers as best he can. The watering bucket will have a few new teeth marks, at any rate.

“Do you believe in the Lifestream, General?” Nanaki asks, when he’s done watering. He leaves the pruning and weeding to Aerith – all the plants look the same to him and he’d rather be safe than sorry, especially since Aerith confided in him that her flowers are the only ones in all of Midgar.

An hour later—and Nanaki _has_ noticed, the way the man seems to lose time as easy as breathing—the General murmurs, “I would be a fool not to.”

“Really?” Nanaki’s ears swivel forward in surprise, “I hadn’t thought ShinRa acknowledged the theory.”

“He doesn’t,” the General tells him. This time it only takes him twenty minutes, and he turns his head slightly to catch and hold Nanaki’s curious stare, “But I pride myself in not following the example of such a man.”

Nanaki hums to show he understands, and they continue in silence for another hour or so. No sunlight reaches under the Plate, but Nanaki curls up on the ledge of one of the windows anyway, because the thick heat of so many living beings in such a small space is still better than the sterile chill of Hojo’s labs.

Some time later, Nanaki is drawn from his light dozing—stretched out fully along the wide window sill—when his ears catch noise drawing closer. He opens his eye— slowly, loathe to get up completely—and strains to listen.

“—be fine. She’s great, and I know the two of you will get along,” a voice comes, from outside the church. Two sets of footsteps, the smell of sweat and metal on each. Neither of them Aerith, though one seems familiar.

At the pew, the General’s shoulders stiffen, but he neither flees nor moves to attack. Nanaki has wondered, but never thought to ask, how their senses compare. The General is far beyond that of a regular human, and even beyond most of the altered ones, if Nanaki had to guess.

The church door creaks open, and in saunters the man who had come falling through the roof a few weeks back, Aerith's Angel-Boy. Behind him comes another boy, shorter and thinner, but with hair as absurdly spiky, though his is bright yellow instead of dark black.

Nanaki almost calls out to him—Zack, if he’s not mistaken—but despite Aerith’s fondness of the man, she had claimed Nanaki to be the guardian of the church, a species of regal beast long since gone (it had, perhaps, hit a little close to home). As amicable as Zack seemed, she’d told him later, there was still the chance of the Turks watching him. Of ShinRa coming to take them both away.

Nanaki hadn’t minded. Her forethought—and her kindness, her willingness to house him, her friendship—had warmed him.

So, as Zack and his friend step further into the church—still chatting amongst themselves and unaware that they are not alone—Nanaki keeps his ears on them, but his eyes on the General.

The General’s shoulders are still tense, and the set of his body is discomforted, but he remains still.

“Hello?” Zack calls, “Aerith?"

“Maybe she’s out. You said… she doesn’t live here, right?” the blond questions, softly.

Zack calls out for Aerith again, and when he hears no answer—still unaware of both Nanaki and the General watching from under hooded eyes—he turns back to his companion.

“Yeah,” Zack agrees with a small roll of his shoulders, “but she’s usually here during the day to take care of the flowers. I wonder where she is?”

“She’s running errands.”

Silence.

Nanaki can’t tell who’s more surprised: the General, who looks as though he is just now realizing it was _him_ who spoke; Zack, whose eyebrows have shot up nearly to his hairline, even as his hand reaches for a weapon he doesn’t have; Zack’s friend, whose eyes are wide; or Nanaki himself, who was honestly expecting the General to steal away when the other two were distracted.

“ _ **General**_?” Zack screeches, pivoting on his heel to face the man, “You know Aerith?! Wait, no, have you been here the _entire time_? Wait, wait, no, **where** have you been! Lazard’s about to declare you dead!”  


As he shouts, Zack’s hands gesture wildly, the energy of his body like a contained storm. The blond is staring between the two, still wide-eyed and obvious bewildered.

Nanaki slides off the ledge with hardly a whisper and slinks along the broken pews and crumbling wall until he stands at the General’s side. Zack’s friend’s eyes grow wider at the sight of him.

“Dead?” the General asks, blankly. It’s the fastest that Nanaki has seen the man reply.

Zack gapes.

“Sephiroth,” he intones, slowly and measuredly in a low voice, “You’ve been missing for more than _four months_. No one in SOLDIER had any idea where you’d gone or when or why and no one can find Hojo or Hollander. Angeal’s been going grey trying to figure out what happened!”

“Angeal?” the General—Sephiroth—repeats, “Is he alright?”

Zack sighs—something like exasperation and relief mingled into one—and drops down onto the other end of the pew. He throws one arm up over his face.

“I was not prepared for this,” he informs the room at large.

“Is Angeal alright?” Sephiroth asks again, shifting on the pew until he’s oriented towards Zack.

“Angeal is fine. Angeal is great. Angeal was in a coma for a few weeks and came out of it degradation-free,” Zack replies, voice partially muffled by his arm. His friend – still wide-eyed – shuffles awkwardly before sitting at the next pew up, and turning to watch them.

“A coma?” Sephiroth frowns and then, “The degradation is gone?”

“Look, man, I don’t know. I’m no scientist and Hollander barely gave him clean bill of health before he dropped off the map.”

Zack sounds tired. Exhausted, really. Clearly, whoever Angeal is and whatever degradation is—or was—it weighed more heavily on Zack’s mind than he let on. Nanaki wouldn’t have thought so, given how bright and happy the man was, even after he’d fallen through the church roof and Aerith scolded him playfully for crushing the flowers.

Nanaki looks up at Sephiroth, who looks back, obviously out of his depth, and then to Zack, who is still hiding behind his arm, and finally to Zack’s friend, who is glancing between all three of them, clearly out of the loop.

“Um,” the blond begins, still shooting nervous looks between them, “Zack?”

Zack _jumps_ , like a startled chocobo, arm falling from his face as he curses, “Ah, shit, sorry Cloud! Sorry, sorry.”

“It’s fine!” Cloud—is that _actually_ his name? Not that Nanaki has much room to judge—hastens to assure, “It’s just…”

“Right,” Zack agrees to whatever has just gone unspoken, “I’m pretty sure you know who Sephiroth is. And that’s Nanaki; Aerith says he’s the church’s guardian. Guys, this is my buddy, Cloud Strife.”

At the introduction, Sephiroth looks down at Nanaki, eyebrows high. Nanaki gives a small shrug. 'Guardian' is better than being considered just some dumb beast.

“It’s just,” Zack is saying, emphatically, “I definitely did not expect to run into my missing CO in my girlfriend’s church, considering that everyone thinks he’s dead.”

Sephiroth doesn’t quite flinch—doesn’t seem the type to—but the arm closest to Nanaki flexes and tenses, and that’s as good a tell as any.

“I didn’t mean to worry you,” Sephiroth murmurs, gaze settled firmly on the wood of the pew in front of him, “I was… preoccupied.”

“Angeal’s the one you gotta apologize to,” Zack interrupts, firmly but not unkindly, “He’s been tearing ShinRa apart trying to find a lead. He’s convinced Hojo’s in on it.”

Nanaki’s tail curls. Even though he knows Hojo to be dead, the thought of the man still unsettles him.

Sephiroth stares at Zack, so intently that Nanaki is half worried the man has slipped back into his usual timeless fugue state, but after only a minute or so, he smiles—the smallest quirking of his lips—and says, “You’ve grown. You wear your authority well.”

Zack grins, ducking his head even as he blushes, one hand rising to rub the back of his neck, “Yeah, well, between you and the other two, _somebody_ had to keep SOLDIER running. Lazard thought I’d make a good guinea pig.”

Sephiroth huffs a laugh and Nanaki can hear Cloud’s small chuckle as well.

“Hey Sephiroth,” Zack begins a moment later, once the humor has faded, spine straight with that newfound authority and face serious, “Are you okay?”

Sephiroth startles, blinking rapidly. Just when his silence is about to speak for itself, he swallows and says, “I am… getting there, I think.”

Zack’s answering smile is as radiant as it was the first time Nanaki saw it, weeks ago.

“Good,” he chirps, pushing himself off the pew, and standing there, fists perched at his hips, “Let’s get you back, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first chapter where we get to see what's happening _outside_ of sephiroth's head. originally, this interlude was only supposed to encompass aerith, angeal and tseng, but nanaki and zack snuck their way in there and pretty much took over
> 
> just to clarify, the rough timeline is this: angeal wakes up more than two weeks after the end of the last chapter, and by the end of the interlude sephiroth has been MIA from ShinRa for more than three months. in between that, the turks have been running damage control on an as-of-yet unseen threat
> 
>  
> 
> [writing/art tumblr](http://manymouths.tumblr.com)


	4. in jersusalem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ( _months_ , zack had told him, face grim but eyes alight with worry
> 
> how do months pass by, with him unaware? what else has he forgotten, what else will he forget, what else will he let slip by?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in the distance, the plot rears its head

> _Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?_
> 
> _[…] You killed me… and I forgot, like you, to die._
> 
> Mahmoud Darwish, _In Jersusalem_

* * *

“You’ve been missing for more than four months,” Zack tells him, voice slow and cautious. Sephiroth does not allow himself to startle, but the words take a moment to make sense. Nanaki is at his side, silent and listening, pretending to be less formidable than he truly is. Sephiroth wishes he could diminish himself so easily.

Zack is mistaken, must be mistaken. It was barely a few days ago that Sephiroth brought Nanaki to the church, and hardly a fortnight since he dealt with Hojo. That day sits like a black mark upon his conscience, his head throbbing every time he remembers the way that Masamune had shone as it slid into corporeality, blade unstained. It is not something he could forget or misremember... is it?

Zack comes to him, unexpected, with Cloud at his side and Sephiroth has never seen a more wonderful sight.

Zack is-- standing there, before him, asking if they are friends. Junon is slowly waking up around them, but the Sister Ray is silent. What does it mean, to have a friend? He thought he knew, once, but Genesis was more bite than comfort and Angeal, for all his comforting words, would rather run than confide in him. Either way, they were both gone, so willing to leave him behind. Genesis was supposed to be on the frontlines, clearing the path, and Angeal shortly behind to secure the bases. Sephiroth was not supposed to arrive at Fort Tamblin only to see Angeal disappear into the night without a backwards glance, his student trapped in a ring of Ifrit’s fire.

That is not the way it’s meant to go, and it is against everything they have promised one another, as though fifteen years under Hojo’s scalpel and ShinRa’s thumb mean _nothing_.

Angeal is—Angeal is a traitor, to ShinRa. He acts in defiance of direct orders and he abandoned his unit in times of warfare. They are traitors, Angeal and Genesis both. ShinRa would see them detained, if not executed for treason. That is easier to define than the way Sephiroth’s chest feels like it’s shrinking, his lungs twisting behind his ribs when he cleaves Ifrit away with a sweep of Masamune and is met with nothing but the silence of Wutai and Zack, raw and betrayed.

But no, no. that was before, a Before that will never happen now. Wutai is over and done with. The degradation has been purged from Angeal and Genesis both. Things have _changed_.

Things have— 

“Sephiroth,” Angeal breathes his name like it is his salvation, sweeping him into a hug before he can open his mouth to offer any paltry apologies. Angeal had been the most worried, almost frantic, Zack had told him. It shows in the lines of his face, the utter relief in his eyes.

“Are you alright?” Angeal demands, drawing back to take him in. Haggard, is probably the word that comes to his mind.

Sephiroth’s tongue feels dry and leaden in his mouth. He swallows. Blinks, to clear the muted black from the edges of his vision. It feels like every time he so much as breathes, someone wants to know if he is alright. Sephiroth does not even know the _meaning_ of the word.

“I feel… tired of being asked,” he admits, wishing for a second to close his eyes. Only for a second. But, no, he cannot do that. Closing his eyes means waking up to JENOVA. Or worse yet, waking up to his flesh parting under Hojo’s blade.

“Perhaps if you didn’t look like you lost a fight to Alexander,” Genesis suggests, but even he is regarding Sephiroth with something approaching concern.

“Where was he?” Angeal asks of Zack, who is a pace behind, next to Cloud.

Cloud. Cloud is here? Of course Cloud is here. Come to kill him again, surely. Cloud is the only one who’s ever managed. Even in those dark, green days when he knew nothing else, Sephiroth knew that he could count on Cloud to strike him down.

No, no. There’s no reason for it, is there? JENOVA is still somewhere in Nibelheim and Hojo is dead. Hojo… yes, Hojo is dead. He remembers the gleam of Masamune under the sterile artificial lights. The curiosity, the fascination on Hojo’s face. Remembers the blood. Can still hear that one word, never spoken. Remembers after—after Aerith—feeding the cooling corpse to the caged Dark Fangs, before he killed them as well. He remembers standing in the silent labs, watching the Dark Fangs pass into the Lifestream and leaving nothing behind.

Hojo is dead and _gone_ , in a way that Sephiroth has never been able to achieve.

“In the slums,” Sephiroth answers, before Zack can. Zack’s eyebrows shoot up and then furrow down. But he doesn’t speak up. Cloud’s eyes—bright blue, even without the mako—are darting between all of them, and the look on his face… is familiar. Sephiroth has been on the receiving end of that assessing look a number of times, before First Tsurugi came hurtling down at him. Sephiroth trusts Angeal, trusted Angeal even when Angeal walked and ran and flew away, but that was with his life. He cannot trust anyone with more than that, and he especially cannot trust Angeal with Aerith’s life, nor Nanaki’s. The less that ShinRa—and by extension, the Turks—knows, the better.

Nanaki. Aerith. He wishes he had been able to say goodbye. Being back under ShinRa’s radar means the likelihood of him being able to visit has dropped below zero. They can take care of themselves; they managed before, after all. But still… they were—are—something like friends, if he is being gracious. He… worries.

The others are talking, still, but he’s lost track of the conversation. It doesn’t seem important. Idle chatter, and not one inquiry directed at him. They are waiting. Cautious, watching.

“I, uh,” Cloud is next to him, suddenly, blushing furiously and so short that his hair does not even reach Sephiroth’s shoulder. He mumbles, so low and quickly that Sephiroth almost can’t make the words out: “I know you said you were tired of people asking, Sir, but are you really okay? You look like you’re gonna fall over.”

Good. Cloud should know, should be prepared. Good. Remember, Cloud is the only one who ever succeeded, again and again. Cloud means that he is not invulnerable, means that he can rest, if only for a moment, before the Lifestream rejects him.

“I’m fine,” Sephiroth manages, despite his uncooperative tongue, his blurring vision, his throbbing head, “Angeal will look after me, and should that fail, you will kill me.”

Cloud gives him a _**look**_ —with bright eyes and tense shoulders—but by then, Sephiroth has already turned away and forgotten.

* * *

The numbers of the budgeting report are floating all over the place. Sephiroth grits his teeth and exhales sharply through his nose, pressing the pads of his fingers hard into his temples. Usually, budgeting would be a chance to relax, a respite as he thoughtlessly filled out the forms. But now, he can’t focus; his vision is swimming, his temples are throbbing and he can feel the ache of fatigue deep in his bones.

He’s half-tempted to set fire to the monthly budget and fill out new forms next week, or whenever his head stops pounding. Before he can decide either way, running his thumb over the Fire materia slotted into his wrist guard, the door to his office opens.

“General,” Tseng stops short and gives him an approximation of a surprised smile, as though he is caught _wildly_ unaware by finding Sephiroth present in his own office for once, “It is good to have you back.”

“Thank you,” Sephiroth says, and nothing else. The silence stretches.

“While you were… away, it seems that both Professors Hollander and Hojo have gone missing. Would you happen to know anything about that?”

It is obvious that Tseng is under the impression that Sephiroth knows something, but it is still a stab in the dark. He would hardly be so calm if he knew more, now would he? But then again, even if Tseng had arrived with the intention of cornering Sephiroth, the man was no Cloud. It would end badly for the Turk. He wonders why Tseng has come to him now, considering how long it’s been. Something else must be happening, something big enough to have drawn Tseng’s attention for so long.

“General…?”

Right. Tseng is still here, waiting. How long? Hands folded behind his back, one brow inching slightly upward. Face settled into impassive lines. No obvious signs of impatience, no indication of how much time has passed. And time has passed, hasn’t it?

( _months_ , zack had told him, face grim but eyes alight with worry

how do months pass by, with him unaware? what else has he forgotten, what else will he forget, what else will he let slip by?)

Hojo is dead and Hollander is as good as. Tseng must know that, on some level. Both Hojo and Hollander were so paranoid that the only way they could be taken from their work would be by force. Tseng must know, by now, that he is looking for remains and not men.

And yet…

“Professor Hojo…” Sephiroth begins, slowly, an idea taking shape, “There is one place he might be. I can head there within the week.”

This is good. Very good. How clever, to think of this. How very clever, to out-clever the Turk.

Tseng’s other eyebrow comes up, the slightest of frowns pulling at his mouth. He is suspicious, and with due reason: Sephiroth would never volunteer to go after Hojo, not when he could stay far, far away instead. His distaste for Hojo is well-known and he has never gone to lengths to hide it.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Tseng says airily, but his eyes are narrowed and he is watching Sephiroth for tells, “I’m sure that I could send a team to…?”

Sephiroth does not take the bait, the obvious lead-in. He will not tell Tseng, so that Turks can be sent in the dead of night to places they have no right to travel. Instead, he lets his lips twist wryly and casts his gaze aside. Gives a small dark sound, from the back of his throat.

Look at me, he wants his body to tell Tseng. Look at my shame.

“If he has holed up where I think he has,” No names, just vague premonitions, “then there are likely things there that will not die idly.”

The Turks can hide away things that should never see the light of day, but the Turks are not enhanced. And Tseng takes care of his Turks. You do not send your spies up against a monster. You send a monster to kill a monster.

Some of the suspicion leaves Tseng’s face, but none of it leaves his body. It’s good enough. It will have to do.

How _clever_.

“Very well,” Tseng agrees, slow and reluctant as though he is granting a great boon, “Make arrangements with Lazard at your earliest convenience.”

* * *

Nibelheim has not changed in the least.

Or rather, it still stands, small and homely in the crevices of the Nibel Mountains, untouched by his hands.

Sephiroth went to Lazard, lied and told the man that Hojo was likely in Rocket Town and never filled out the requisitions forms or sent in the appropriate personnel files. Instead, he asked Zack to accompany him as a personal favor and took a helicopter in the dead of night, four days before his listed departure date.

It’s been… decades, really, since he learned to pilot an aircraft, but he only has to get them there. Once he is in Nibelheim, the return will hardly matter. They’ll hitch a ride back on a transport, if they have to. Nibelheim is the beginning and end of all things; all that matters is that they get there. Everything else is secondary.

Zack is clearly curious about what exactly they’re doing here—in this small town, in the dead of night, and with no standing orders—but he either isn’t curious enough to ask, or he… trusts Sephiroth’s discretion. It’s a sobering, novel thought.

“Should I go book us a room?” Zack jerks a thumb over his shoulder, to where the lights of Nibelheim can barely be seen through the mist and the snow.

Sephiroth had landed the helicopter right outside the gates of the mansion. It was a rough landing—there was barely enough flat ground—but the thought of setting foot in the Nibelheim makes his head throb. It is enough to be haunted by the smell of burning wood and still bodies. He doesn’t need to confront all that he once destroyed. Wutai was enough.

“No,” he tells Zack absently, “There’s nothing there but the ashes.”

“… Ashes?” Zack looks over his shoulder, but shrugs and follows Sephiroth up to the mansion door.

Sephiroth stares at the old oak door, tracing the swirls of the timber with his eyes, before gripping the handle tightly. He can almost feel the heat of the fire on his skin, can almost feel the sting of mako in his eyes—

“Uh, Sephiroth?”

He jerks, the door hinges shrieking in protest as they’re pulled the wrong way. Zack’s eyes are wide, his eyebrows high.

“I…”

Sephiroth clenches his jaw, exhales sharply through his nose. Try again. Make him understand. This is desecrated land, where the dead find no peace.

“Zack… this is… this is where the SOLDIER program started. This is where I was created.”

“ _Created_?” Brows drawn low in anger, voice high and irate in confusion.

Steady. Steady. Slow and easy. Make him _understand_.

“There are things in this place that must be put down. Even if they look human. You can’t hesitate.”

Zack turns from him and begins to pace, one hand brought up to cover his mouth. He looks angry and bewildered and out of his depth. He curses and runs his hands through his hair and curses again. But he does not leave.

(---- _those wings_ , zack had confided in him, voice small, _i want them too_

later, after modeoheim, zack had found him, buster sword strapped to his back and face scarred and eyes full of _**something**_

 _even in the end_ , zack had told him haltingly, _he was never a monster. even then, he was just…_

he never finished the sentence, had only stared sadly at his own hands, calloused and dirty. sephiroth—so stupid then, so uncomprehending—had only sat there, stiffly at zack’s side: wanting to apologize, without admitting cowardice; wanting to hate angeal for putting both zack and himself in this position; wanting to tear the world itself down around him because it wa _sn’t fair_ , what was the point of all hojo’s procedures and experiements if everything was falling apart around him _anyways_ —

\---- _sephiroth!_ zack was yelling, buster sword strapped to his back and face scarred and eyes full of _**something**_

 _answer me_ , zack demanded, with something pleading in his voice, even as he reached for the hilt of the buster sword, _sephiroth!_

all around them, there was steam and the steady whir of machinery and the low bubbling of mako being purified and processed in its vat and there was the metallic shriek of masamune against the buster sword but only angeal had ever had the strength to withstand his blows like that but angeal was **dead** and genesis was going to **rot** and behind his temples there was the constant susurrus of _MY SON MY SON NOW WE SHALL  TAKE TO THE SKIES AND WE SHALL FIND THE PROMISED LAND O MY BLESSED SON_

masamune was so familiar in his hand, and zack fell before him like leaves part before the wind. but then, then there was cloud, so small and so dangerous, cloud who pulled masamune to him, uncaring of the blood on his lips, pulling and _pulling_ until he had enough leverage to throw sephiroth, there into the mako that bubbled and stung and burned and sephiroth choked even as JENOVA began to scream _I WILL NEVER BE A MEMORY I WILL BURN THESE SKIES AND REND THIS PLANET UNTIL THE PROMISED LAND IS BEFORE ME I WILL—_

)

Sephiroth takes the door off at the hinges. Through the cloud of dust and wood, they enter.

* * *

The library is much the same as he remembers, books stacked chaotically on the shelves, papers strewn about. All the signs that the research was left behind in a hurry. The computer terminals are covered in dust and their fans whir loudly as they boot up.

Zack walks the length of the room, picking up books and glancing at random pages before tossing them back down. He still has a hand over his mouth, and is frowning thoughtfully.

Sephiroth uses Hojo’s master password to access all the documentation on Project JENOVA and copies the files to his PHS. After a moment of consideration, he copies all of the files on the terminal, even the hidden ones. Then he puts his fist through the side of the terminal and rips out every cord and wire he can reach.

When he turns back to the rest of the library, it is on fire. His pulse jumps, heart leaping into his throat and he can barely make out Zack’s still silhouette through the thick cover of the flames, he opens his mouth to yell—

“This is all bullshit.”

Zack’s words are like a masterfully cast Blizzaga and Sephiroth blinks and the library is—it’s fine. There are no scorch marks, no smoke. Zack’s back is to him and clenched in his hand, he holds a very familiar book: the written documentation of the results of Project JENOVA.

Zack glares at him over his shoulder.

“This is bullshit, you hear me? Hojo wouldn’t know science if it smacked him in the face.”

Sephiroth stares. Zack throws the book, glaring even as it thumps against the far wall and lands with crumpled pages. When he turns back to Sephiroth, his face softens.

“Listen, that ‘subject’? That’s not you.”

Sephiroth manages to swallow, somehow, even as he averts his eyes. His tongue feels heavy and useless in his mouth and his chest aches, like he’s under the effect of Gravira. Even though his mind is racing—did he think Zack wouldn’t make the connection, when he all but spelled it out?—he feels blank. There are no words.

“I know you,” Zack insists earnestly, “Maybe not as well as Angeal or Genesis, but I know you. And it’s pretty obvious that Hojo didn’t. I don’t think he ever did.”

Still, Sephiroth cannot find it in himself to reply. He should though, because something that Zack said has set off a small, quiet sort of panic in his throat. But still, no words. No response. Zack does not seem to expect one and having said his piece, he then pries the entire bookshelf out of the wall, throwing it to the ground. It is loud, wood creaking and snapping and books spilling everywhere, throwing up motes of dust.

When the dust settles, he can see Zack's face, and his look of slow and deep realization.

“Hojo’s already dead, right?”

Didn’t. Hojo didn’t, he’d said, and Sephiroth hadn’t corrected him. Just because Tseng hadn’t outright accused him to his face did not mean that everyone believed Hojo to merely be missing. Sephiroth nods—barely—and waits for… something. For Zack’s look of betrayal? For castigation? Something.

Zack nods, like he knew all along—and, maybe he did—and then plants his hands on his hips to survey the damaged library. Various years’ worth of research lay in disarray at his feet, valuable annotations and findings all torn and left askew. Zack looks satisfied. Confident. The pauldrons of his uniform sit upon his shoulders like they grew there, and the shape of the Buster Sword at his back cuts him as an impressive figure.

Sephiroth knows now—has always known, perhaps—that Zack Fair is a far better man than he. One worthy of being called hero, without a doubt.

“C’mon, you look like you need to smash something,” Zack nudges Sephiroth’s shoulder with a soft smile, and begins to pick his way across the room.

Sephiroth falls into step behind him, and it is the most natural and wondrous thing he has ever felt.

* * *

“How come you asked me along?” Zack wonders, planting his fist into the face of the nearest Tonberry. There are many monsters in the mansion, but none of them high level enough to worry. The Tonberries are more annoying than anything.

“Angeal is still on medical leave,” Sephiroth answers, twisting Masamune to block and parry the rusted knives, “And Genesis… He would see all of this as a… weakness, on my part.”

Zack sighs, shaking his head, “I will never understand this weird one-upmanship you guys have.”

They make short work of the Tonberries and pause to recuperate. The basement is damp and poorly lit, but it’s hardly a hindrance. Zack downs a potion and then gestures, “You should probably cast Scan again.”

Sephiroth hums and links his Scan materia to his All. He’d already cast when they entered, but with the number of secret passageways and the strange floorplan, it couldn’t hurt to cast again.

There’s an absurdly large number of Tonberries in the basement, as well as a few Sahagins, and some Dark Claws and a pack of Nibel wolves prowling the upper levels.

There’s also—

“Someone else is here,” Sephiroth hisses, ending the Scan with a twist and curl of his fingers. The projected map gutters and dissipates.

“Where?” Zack asks, gripping the Buster Sword.

Sephiroth narrows his eyes in the approximate direction that the Scan indicated.

“Below.”

* * *

The catacombs are eerie and quiet, full of floating dust motes and the distant creak of wood and metal from the upper levels.

And a slow, ponderous heartbeat.

“Can you hear that?” Sephiroth murmurs to Zack, eyes drawn from coffin to coffin.

“Yeah, but I can’t pin it,” Zack whispers back, stepping into the room.

Sephiroth follows a step behind and they approach each coffin – slowly, in case there are monsters lying in wait – methodically until—

“Here.” Zack indicates with a dip of his head.

And then the coffin lid explodes.

* * *

Valentine is—a surprise, of sorts.

For all that Sephiroth knows Nibelheim, so much happened here that he is not privy to. Had Valentine always been here, sequestered away in a coffin? He has no way of knowing. Although, right now, that knowledge is the least of his concerns.

“Stand down,” Sephiroth demands again, pressing Masamune tighter to the man’s throat, hard enough to draw blood. He calls over his shoulder: “Zack, are you alright?”

Zack huffs and Sephiroth can hear the sound of him retrieving the Buster Sword, metal scraping against concrete.

“Yeah, he missed.”

Before Zack could reach to open the coffin, the lid had exploded outward in a plume of wood and stone, followed by a blur of red and the click of a trigger being pulled. Zack had thrown himself clear and Sephiroth had barely managed to swing Masamune up to deflect the bullet. Valentine had gone to fire again and Sephiroth had lunged, knocking the gun from Valentine’s hand and bringing the blade up to the other man’s neck.

“Lucrecia?” The man whispers, pupils blown and focused unerringly on him. He does not react to the blade at his throat. If anything, he presses into it.

“ **Yield** ,” Sephiroth bites out, and finally, he does.

* * *

Valentine is shuddering and hissing and utterly human in his despair, his relief, his agony.

“ _Dead_?” He asks again, voice small in the vast open space of the basement and Zack says again, “Yes, Hojo is dead.”

Sephiroth turns his head away, and listens to a man and his demons grieve.

* * *

Before he opens the hatch to the reactor, Sephiroth turns back to Zack.

He feels… nervous, almost. His pulse is steady, but his throat is dry and his hands are trembling ever so slightly.

“You can’t hesitate,” Sephiroth reminds him, ignoring the way Valentine’s attention sharpens.

Zack grimaces, but he clasps Sephiroth’s hand in his own and swears, “I won’t.”

* * *

He takes a single step forward onto the platform and—

There is nothing, but He and Himself, for he is all things worth anything. Below him, people—like ants to be crushed underfoot, like the dust that winds itself through the wind, so small and _insignificant_ —are scurrying, are screaming are yelling are burning. He will burn this world to ashes, will tear it asunder, will reshape it in his image and will conquer Planets until He finds the Promised Land, the Holy Land, the Blessed Land for He is the Prodigal Son and

There is nothing before him which should not be and

He is

Blessed, Holy, Sacred, Wondrous, Hallowed Be Thy Mercy and Thy Blade and

He will never fade, He will never be a memory and He

Is not

Will not

_HE IS_

feet moving forward, born of mortal flesh, this immortal soul and this half-mortal body, stepping forward and arms raised in adoration, arms raised in praise and

_HE IS NOT_

arms raised and Sephiroth tears the cover from the tank, uncaring and unwatching of how it groans and topples into the Mako below, he slams his fist into the thick glass, watching it spiderweb and crackle. He swings his fist again—ignores the sting of glass against his knuckles—and _again_ and _**again**_ until it gives and his fist meets the strange, damp flesh of JENOVA’s torso.

He can hear nothing but her, and his heart galloping in his chest and he pries at the hole in the glass with scrabbling fingers, pulling and tearing until the sharp edges break away and he _snarls_ : “Get _**out** of my head_.”

The glass tinkles and rings out against the metal of the platform as he tears it away. With it gone, the weight of JENOVA falls to bear against him, all the tubes hissing in protest and the platform shudders at the weight, metal groaning and twisting and snapping and then—

suddenly—

JENOVA is heavy against him, more like rock than flesh and she is screaming in his head, cursing him, trying desperately to force a Reunion—but he _is not_ , he _will not_ —

Distantly, like the sound of a far off sea, he can hear Zack scream his name.

The mako splashes up around them, hot and foaming.

* * *

Sephiroth lurches forward, choking, drowing—the last he remembers is the burn of Mako in his eyes, his throat, JENOVA screaming and her heavy corpse dragging him down—

“Easy,” a voice tells him. There is the sound of cloth against cloth, the squeak of leather. The smell of metal and wind and mako. He knows that smell, that sound.

Sephiroth gasps, and sputters and pants, his brain not quite understanding yet that he is no longer submerged, sinking. He clutches desperately at his chest, as though it will convince his lungs to expand, his heart to calm.

All around him: white.

Where—?

“Deep breaths,” the voice says, though it ventures no closer to check on him. He wouldn’t expect it to.

“Cloud,” he murmurs, glancing over. And it is. Cloud, as Sephiroth last saw him, twice over: dressed in the ugly ShinRa Infantry uniform, but just as broad and haggard as he was when he last slew Sephiroth. He is dressed like a child, but the set of his face and the steel in his eyes are too aged, too tired to be anything but Cloud, as Sephiroth knows him best.

Sephiroth looks to the other side. White. Looks down. As far as he can see, there are flowers. Of all colors and shapes and sizes, springing forth joyously.

 _Aerith_ , Sephiroth thinks, and then he thinks nothing at all because his heart **hurts** , thinking of Aerith as he last saw her, smiling in her white dress and chatting amicably with Nanaki but there is also Aerith as he knew her best, with a placid smile on her face as Masamune perforates her lungs, red blood against soft pink cotton as she collapses. He can feel bile rising in his throat, even as it closes up and leaves him gaping futilely for air.

“That’s gotta hurt,” Cloud remarks idly, his chin propped up on the flat of his palm. He’s crouched on his haunches a scant ten feet away, watching. He makes no move to come closer, neither to slay Sephiroth nor assist him.

It takes a moment more, before Sephiroth’s throat opens enough for him to choke on a gasp. He sits there, hunched over himself and choking down bile and panting until his heart calms, fingers clawed and clutching at the dirt. Cloud watches, silent and with keen eyes.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth says again, because it is the only thing he can think to say.

Cloud sighs, and falls backwards out of his crouch, sending up a flurry of flower petals and pollen.

“You know,” he grumbles, crossing his legs, “I had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do: Take care of JENOVA, kill Hojo, save Zack and Aerith, and shut down the Mako Reactors. And kill you. More or less in that order.”

Sephiroth can hardly hear him for all the blood rushing in his ears.

He had always wondered, why the Planet had listened to him at _that_ moment, _then_ of all times. Why the Planet would send him _back_ , rather than just kill him, as he had wanted. Why the Planet would send _**him**_ to fix things, when he had ruined so many things before, and was too far gone to pay any attention after.

But then, perhaps it is that the Planet did not send him. Perhaps it is only that he got dragged along for the ride. Either way, the Planet did not send him _alone_.

“But then by the time I could do anything, it turns out you’ve already gotten a head start. I gotta admit, I was pretty surprised.”

It’s not a question, but it is. It _is_ (and how strange and yet not strange at all it is, to hear _zack's_ words spill from _cloud's_ mouth).

“I was tired… of fighting,” Sephiroth admits, staring down at his own hands, fingers still buried in the dirt, “I just wanted to stop.”

“I had wondered,” Cloud nods, not looking surprised in the least, “How much was you and how much was JENOVA. It never mattered in the end, but I _had_ wondered.”

“Have you come to kill me?” Sephiroth asks.

“Have you become a coward?” Cloud shoots back.

“What?”

“Even if you want to die,” Cloud tells him, firmly, “You finish what you start. Or are you fine with leaving Zack grieving for you in the Nibel Reactor?”

Zack. Just before the mako rushed up around him, he remembers: Zack, voice scraped raw with hurt echoing against the cold, unmoving metal of the reactor. His name, syllables stretched long in grief and abandon.

And not just Zack, but Angeal and Genesis back in ShinRA HQ, and Aerith and Nanaki, in the church. They would grieve for him. Midgar would lament the loss of their “hero” and ShinRa would rage at the loss of their greatest weapon, but those five would _mourn_ him.

“So you understand?” Cloud’s voice is even, and without reproach.

And some part of Sephiroth marvels at that. He remembers that first time, in the Nibel Mako Reactor, the way Cloud had thrown him into the Mako. There had been defiance in his eyes, and something like betrayal. He has only vague recollections of Northern Crater and the Forest of the Ancients but he knows. He hurt Cloud. He and JENOVA preyed on Cloud’s mind—so addled by Hojo—and played him for a puppet. He _killed_ Aerith.

“Do you not want to kill me?” He finds himself asking, because Cloud has more right to his death than any other.

“I haven’t forgotten, not for a second,” Cloud shakes his head, twirling a small blue flower between his figners, “And I haven’t forgiven you. But you regret, and you tried to change things for others, and not yourself. I can live with that.”

Sephiroth draws himself forward and tucks his feet beneath him. He has only ever done this once before—long, long ago—and he wants to get it right. Legs beneath him, Sephiroth sweeps his hair back and bows until his forehead grazes the loamy dirt. The flowers tickle his ears, but he remains prostrated before Cloud for a full five minutes.

Cloud says nothing, but Sephiroth can feel the intensity of his gaze.

“Thank you,” Sephiroth whispers into the earth, as though imparting a great secret, “I will do my best not to disappoint you.”

When Sephiroth pushes himself back upright, Cloud is gone. The flowers are starting to peel and crumble away into thick, swirling vines of the Lifestream. Green, like mako.

“Go, finish what you’ve started,” Cloud’s voice echoes around him, there and not.

Black begins to creep into the edges of his vision. He takes a deep breath.

Cloud’s voice, soft like always, but with the strength of the Planet behind it: “Finish what you’ve started, and then we’ll see.”

* * *

“— _wrong_ with him!”

“—self, you saw how—”

"—handle mako exposure?"

“—Grab him! No, no, hold—!”

“—oth! _Sephiroth!_ ”

“—and what the hell _was_ that thing, I could _hear_ it—”

“—bleeding, where is it _coming from_ —”

“ _ **Sephiroth!**_ ”

* * *

The lights are bright, stinging and artificial. Sterile. A drop-ceiling, forming a pattern of neat squares as far as the eye can see. There are 274 squares, and he knows them by heart.

The Nibelheim labs have not changed. But he has.

Sephiroth is at once staring up at the ceiling, where a moment ago he was not. He was…? He had been?… He turns his head.

There, to the side, sits Zack. His shoulders are hunched and his elbows are resting on his knees. His fingers are laced and his head is bowed. Almost like he is praying, or begging. Is there a difference? He does not think so.

“You,” Zack rasps without lifting his head. Sephiroth can hear the dry slide of his tongue across his lips. Dehydrated. How long has he been sitting there, vigilant?

“You’re sick. Like really, really sick. I shoulda guessed, with you spacing out all the time, losing track of things...”

Zack’s fingers tense, tighten, his arms tensing all the way to the shoulder blade.

“I—”

He cuts himself off. Then he laughs. It is an unpleasant sound.

“Shit man, I’m not a scientist. But that guy Valentine, he says—he says— It’s been a couple days since you, uh, took a swim and you weren’t waking up, so we’ve been pouring over Hojo’s old notes – I still think his science is shit, but the jackass still wrote down _everything_ , and turns out there’s this failsafe.”

Zack’s throat clicks as he swallows, and it is loud. There are no other sounds; Hojo had never wanted to be disturbed during a session. Meticulous. Paranoid.

“ _Failsafe_ ,” Zack spits the word, “Like you’re a fucking… program or something. Your brain is probably bleeding, because your internal chemistry is outta whack or something. A lot of it went over my head, but the basics are that Hojo drove you right up to the edge of Colossally Fucked Up and made sure he was the only one that could keep you from tipping over it.”

Zack’s shoulders fall, no less tense but so much more weary.

“It’s not _fair_ ,” he whispers, voice choked and tight, “We just got Angeal back, and now you—?”

“… It’s alright,” Sephiroth manages, voice rough and grating on his throat. His temples are throbbing, but lately, when is the last time they weren’t? But he has not lied to Zack. It is alright. Hojo is dead, and JENOVA is likely sunken to the bottom of the mako tank, crushed by the pressure. Angeal and Genesis are saved. Aerith and Nanaki are safe.

“It’s alright,” he croaks again, and Zack finally looks up. His face is blotchy and his eyes are glossy, the skin around them red and irritated.

“It’s _not_ ,” Zack argues, clenching his fists, even as tears gather in the corners of his eyes, “It’s not okay.”

Sephiroth grits his teeth against the sting of his own eyes, turns his head away from Zack. Hojo is dead and JENOVA is gone. Angeal and Genesis are saved, and Aerith and Nanaki are safe. But _he_ — he is going to—

_Finish what you’ve started, and we’ll see._

“Sephiroth, it’s _not fair_ , this isn’t **_okay_** —” Zack’ voice is a wreck, a ruin, vowels lost in tears and sorrow. He doesn't even finish the sentence, words stumbling away, falling into harsh, gasping sobs and small whines.

“No,” Sephiroth agrees softly, staring up again at the harsh fluorescent lights. Zack chokes and gasps, desperate little noises of sorrow. The brightness of the lights is making Sephiroth's eyes sting. His eyes feel raw—the lights are so bright—and his throat is dry, no matter how much he swallows, “It’s not fair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [screaming internally] nibelheim wasn't supposed to be a whole thing by itself and uh most def not 6k words of a whole thing jfc it's like wutai all over again
> 
> thank you all so much for your reviews, kudos and bookmarks!!!
> 
>  
> 
> [writing/art tumblr](http://manymouths.tumblr.com)


	5. in the presence of absence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slipping through his fingers like dust and ash, he is always _losing_ , even when nothing is the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **tw for this chapter:** there's some graphic imagery of invasive surgery and just a lot of mentions of casual violence done to bodies and hojo's experiments and all that implies
> 
> also, i'm just gonna outright state it: please keep in mind that sephiroth is least reliable narrator i have _ever written,_ like _he_ doesn't even know if he knows what he's talking about

> _My memory is like a pomegranate._
> 
> _Shall I open it over you and let it_
> 
> _scatter, seed by seed: red pearls_
> 
> _befitting a farewell that asks nothing of_
> 
> _me except forgetfulness?_
> 
> Mahmoud Darwish, _In the Presence of Absence_

* * *

Sometime after Sephiroth wakes up, Valentine comes to see him. The bedrooms are musty and thick with dust and forgotten things. He had never actually been up here, before. He was always kept in the labs, either in a mako tank or on a stiff mattress in what was essentially a cell. The ceilings are high and the thick wooden beams give it a strange ambiance. The wind pushes against the entire mansion, and at night it groans. He hadn't known that buildings could do that. Valentine knocks, even though the door is open. The curtains are open as well, letting in meager sunlight.

Valentine takes five long strides into the room, crossing the threshold and coming to stop by the bedside. Sephiroth’s eyes still hurt, his head still aches. Zack is still in the basement, rooting through reports and files. Still, still, still. Everything feels stagnant.

Sephiroth keeps Valentine in his peripheral, but lets his gaze fall to the window, where he can see the chain of the Nibel Mountains like a distant behemoth. Valentine shifts, so slight that if he weren’t so close, Sephiroth might’ve missed it.

Valentine is—his motives, or intentions, or whatever they might be called remain unknown to him. Hadn’t he fought with Cloud? What was he still doing here, with Sephiroth and Zack, who are bleeding like sieves on the edge of bursting, Sephiroth resigned and Zack in denial? The man has been nothing but distantly polite, but something about him—the feel of him, the taste of his presence in the air—raises the fine hairs along his skin.

"You should depart soon," Valentine intones, voice heavy with that strange, thick emotion he only seems to feel when he looks at Sephiroth, "There's a storm heading in from the north; it will cover your tracks."

"Are you not coming with?" Sephiroth asks, for propriety’s sake. There is little reason for Valentine to accompany him and Zack all the way back to Midgar.

Valentine's gaze drops away, and his shoulders come up in a faltering shrug.

"I have no business in Midgar."

For all his supposed Turk training, the older man is excruciatingly open around Sephiroth; all telling little glances and soft, sad noises. That he has no business in Midgar could be true, with Hojo dead, but it feels like a lie. An excuse.

But it’s not one that poses a danger to either him or Zack, so Sephiroth lets it sit, uncontested.

"There is... another thing," the words come slowly and laboriously, dragged up from some corner of Valentine's reluctant and obviously pained countenance. Sephiroth wonders about that; why does Valentine insist on speaking with him, when even looking at Sephiroth causes him such obvious pain? There are so many things about Valentine that Sephiroth doesn’t understand.

He waits, but Valentine does not continue, the lower half of his face stubbornly hidden beneath the collar of his cloak, and his eyes pointedly fixed away from Sephiroth.

Stilted conversation aside, being around Valentine is… easy. Easier than being around Zack, for the moment. Valentine is watchful and dangerous, true, but Sephiroth does not know him, does not _care_ for him. Sephiroth does not wake in the dead of night with the imagined feel of _Valentine’s_ blood on his hands. Valentine fought alongside Cloud, and his presence here in the mansion means that he was likely under Hojo’s care at some point. That is all they have in common, that intimate knowledge of Hojo and his experiments.

Sephiroth’s eyes flick up, from underneath his hair, taking in Valentine once more at a glance. His clothes are faded around the edges, and torn. His hair is a long snarl of black, tangled at the ends. His skin is pale, surely unhelped by being confined within the coffin, and though he hides his mouth and nose, one can still see the deep bags of exhaustion beneath his eyes. His irises are red, and the pupils are slit. Not like Sephiroth’s own, under JENOVA’s call, but inhuman all the same.

He has guns, at least two. He smells of leather and metal and some deep, earthy musk that draws Sephiroth’s attention and makes his fingers twitch for Masamune. Valentine is a fight—not Cloud, of course, but perhaps still a good fight—wrapped up in a sad, pale visage.

There is no warmth to him, not like Zack. Or, if there is, it is not for Sephiroth to see.

“What do you know,” Valentine begins, slow and careful, his red red eyes jumping up to meet Sephiroth’s, “about what was… done to you?”

Many, many things. So many things were done to him, that sometimes he feels as though he could drown beneath the mere thought of them all. Before, like old film grayed out with age, there was Hojo and needles and mako. There was Gast, there one day and gone the next, but a cold body on the floor, old face drawn into lines of resignation and Hojo chortling with glee because even then he knew he was above persecution. Even then, Hojo knew how to use Sephiroth—the success of Sephiroth’s very being—as a means to an ends.

It is cold. He cannot feel his fingers. He wants to sleep. He is tired.

Sephiroth holds Valentine’s gaze, even though something in him wants to pull away. He does not want to talk about Hojo. He has _never_ wanted to talk about Hojo. The man is dead, finally, now, this time; can’t he be forgotten about in peace?

But. Valentine looks—troubled. His face is still mostly hidden, but his eyes are pinned to Sephiroth like skin cut away and peeled back from flesh, as Hojo takes note, muttering under his breath—his eyes are fixed on Sephiroth, unwavering, black brows furrowed low. He must be frowning.

What… what was the question? When was it asked? (what day is it? how _long_ have they been here? how long has it been? too long, and Tseng might come looking, and there are things here that should not be seen by Turk eyes, things with mako instead of blood and too many eyes and teeth and what use did Hojo _have_ for such things, when he already _**had**_ Sephiroth, who he called Perfection, who he tried again and again to reproduce but could never account for all factors, what was the _point,_ of _any_ of it—)

“I…”

His throat is raw, aching, and his voice is a knife parting flesh, he hurts and he does not wish to talk about Hojo, if he must talk at all, but Valentine asked, not demanded, and there is little harm in answering, it there?

Answering… what was the question?

 _what do you know_ , Valentine had said, hadn’t he? He had. His voice was smooth and even, but there had been a pause, the sound of strangled breath as though words had been changed on a dime.

_what do you know about what was… done to you?_

“I know that it began before my birth.”

There. An answer. Although... can it be called a birth? Before his Creation? The way Hojo went on about it, Sephiroth was all but cloned from samples of JENOVA, stabilized with various bits and pieces of human DNA and incubated in a human womb, like a parasite. Perfection, he’d said, he’d always said, because Hojo could just come in—with his scalpel, his microscope, saws and tubes and wires, muttering under his breath and adjusting dials, measuring mako,pulling things apart and tearing things away—and change what he didn’t like. Switch out the “excess” for more and more of JENOVA.

“But you do know that you were _birthed_ ,” Valentine demands more than asks, almost pleading.

Was it his birth? He isn’t sure. Hojo, he thinks, would not have considered him birthed until his second year, when he was finally allowed off of the table and out of the chambers; when he could walk, and talk, slowly and carefully, because he had not been given two vocal chords to mumble or stutter. That was when he became Perfection, when he became a thing and not just pieces of meat and mako, cut apart and sewn back into new shapes.

Though, that emphasis is odd. _Birthed_. As opposed to what? In the context of what? Sephiroth knows much about himself, but from _being_ : He knows how to manage all four and a half feet of his hair, and he knows that way his fingers stiffen sometimes, in the familiar shape of Masamune’s hilt. He knows that his eyes reflect light in the dark like an animal's and that while his skin is pale enough to bare the blue-green of his veins to light, he can block sword strikes with his bare hands.

He remembers, Before, coming to Nibelheim and finding the library and being sucked into annotation after annotation of _‘the subject’_ and _‘procedure successful’_ and _‘specimen J’_ and _‘removal of unnecessary components’_ and he remembers the grim, sudden understanding that he was not what he once thought. And then, as he stood in that library and shook with anger and loathing, he remembers the floating, lilting whisper that said to him, _come to me, my be loved child._

And he had gone.

In truth, sometimes he only knows himself as a stranger knows a separate thing. Something that must be learned, rather than an intrinsic knowledge. It feels, these days—months? weeks? how long, since he has lived again?—as though he is remembering a film seen once on a whim, instead of remembering his own memories, his own life.

“JENOVA did not bear you,” Valentine tells him, as though imparting some great truth. There is gravity to his voice, like he thinks he can _compel_ Sephiroth to take it as truth undeniable.

No, JENOVA did not bear him—he’s not even certain on whether she is viviparous—but does that really matter, in the end? It’s a matter of semantics, isn’t it? JENOVA did not bear him because he was not born so much as pulled together by Hojo and supplemented by JENOVA. She is his mother in most ways that count, he supposes. Though, it is not as though he knows what function a mother serves.

Genesis had parents, and Angeal as well. They two were birthed, literally, and only received minor procedures in utero. They are… far more human than he. More flawed, as Hojo always spat. Because they had hearts that beat, like his does, circulating blood and mako through the body, but they also had those _hearts_ that everyone speaks of, the ones that ache with nostalgia or sorrow and that burn with rage or jealousy. Those hearts that weren’t hearts at all, but a _something_ that Sephiroth is not sure he has ever had. If it could be removed, Hojo would have removed it. His science held no place for that kind of… sentiment.

“There was a woman… named Lucrecia,” Valentine is still talking, but his voice is like rough stone. Why, _why_ does he keep talking when it **hurts** him—?

Why does he keep talking when it will only hurt them **_both_**? Sephiroth never knew, never asked, doesn’t want to know, he _doesn’t want to know_. What is the point of knowing, now when it is far too late? JENOVA is dead, Hojo is dead, Sephiroth will die soon—either because Cloud will kill him once and for all, finally, or his body will just **stop** —and it doesn’t matter. If it ever did. If there is this woman, Lucrecia, and she is not yet dead like every other being that brought Sephiroth’s twisted self into this thrice-damned world, then she is better off, wherever she is.

“Why tell me this?” And now, his voice too is rough, strained.

Valentine falls silent, and then, still with a voice like metal over gravel, “You deserve to know the truth. About yourself.”

What _truth_? What _is_ truth? If Hojo did not tell it, and JENOVA didn’t either, how is Sephiroth to know that Valentine isn’t just telling his own ‘truth’? The only truth that has ever been proven to him was in the set of Cloud’s shoulders, who got up again and again and put him down, again and again. That is truth, forged in blood and sweat and pain and time. Sephiroth knows that truth like he knows his own body, like he knows Masamune: Cloud Strife will kill him. All other ‘truths’—JENOVA, Hojo, Angeal, Genesis, Valentine and this Lucrecia woman—are not nearly so genuine nor dependable.

It is so cold. He just wants to rest. But he can’t. He remembers, Cloud and the Lifestream spread as flowers as far as the eye can see.

_Finish what you’ve started, and then we’ll see._

“Earlier,” Valentine grinds out, “In the reactor. Fair and I could—hear, or sense, whatever she… whatever JENOVA told you. Only a phrase here or there, but—”

“She called me her son,” Sephiroth says, realizing what this is all about, knows that he spoke the words but cannot hear anything but the loud drum of his heart. Valentine looks away, and Sephiroth can hear him grinding his teeth.

All of this, this is all so _pointless_ , because, and the words come out so _scathingly_ , like acid dripped onto open wounds to test the adaptability and the rate of recovery, “She has **_always_** called me her son.”

Valentine’s head snaps up, but Sephiroth is hardly paying attention to the man, for all the sudden, seething **anger** that is thrumming through him. JENOVA has always been there, _always_ , and if Valentine is so certain that Sephiroth deserves to know these things—about himself, and JENOVA, and this Lucrecia—then _where has the man been_.

“You’ve heard her before?” Valentine’s voice is faint, distant like an underwater echo, drowned out by the beat of Sephiroth’s heart, screaming behind his temple.

 _She **haunts** me_ , he wants to scream, to cackle. He wants to laugh in Valentine’s face. It’s a novel feeling, and he even knows what it would sound like: bitter and broken and a little desperate, because JENOVA has haunted him from birth.

Before the entire project was moved to Midgar, he would hear her every day. For the longest, he hadn’t realized that he was the only one who could hear her and she hadn’t either. She had been sleeping then, only projecting idle thoughts of _where are my children, my chil dren, where_. Hojo had never been terribly interested in her beyond harvesting her cells and other genetic material, and Gast had never known.

It wasn’t until Nibelheim—until she woke up—that she began to _scream_.

“Her blood carries her,” he sneers, and Valentine’s full-body flinch fills him with a sense of joy. It does nothing to tamp down the anger, but he lets it settle in his chest, like a buffer, like a buoy.

Valentine says nothing more, but he has already said enough, too much, that Sephiroth never asked to be told. Valentine is silent, is quiet, and Sephiroth watches him go, can feel his fingers twitching and tensing the entire time.

* * *

(Valentine does not leave, then, but he does not stare after Sephiroth with that heavy, sloe-eyed look of misery anymore either.

Zack asks, with a casual sort of curiosity, “Are you guys fighting or something?”

Sephiroth wants to smirk, to sneer, to tear. He can feel words sitting underneath his tongue like stoked embers, waiting to be fanned.

( _you will **rot**_ , he had spat, and there had been a giddiness in his chest because for once, _he_ was the one walking away)

But that’s no good to him, here and now, because of all those who he considers friends, Zack has never tried to leave him behind. Zack followed him here to Nibelheim, came here with him to help Sephiroth face his demons and never once doubted. Zack is good. Zack does not deserve his ire, his vitriol.

“No,” he replies, leaving those embers stowed away within him, though there is still the taste of ash on his tongue, “Valentine and I have said all we need to say to each other.”)

* * *

They leave Nibelheim like they arrived: in the dark of night, with the town a soft glow in the distance. The chopper should have enough fuel to get them back to Midgar proper, if not all the way to ShinRa HQ.

Zack offers to fly with an easy smile and no mention of the fact that it took Sephiroth four times as long to make his way out of the mansion, dizzy and faint-headed as he was. Valentine sees them off, silently handing over a plethora of potions and elixirs and a handful of materia. He does not look at Sephiroth once, but Sephiroth knows the motions of a round-about apology.

He does not know if there is any forgiveness in him to give, but he manages to meet Valentine’s eyes and he nods. Slowly, Valentine nods back.

Zack does not mention it, nor does he mention the fact that Sephiroth takes his proffered hand to pull himself up into the chopper. Zack, he decides graciously, is very good at not mentioning things without _obviously_ skirting around them.

Soon, they are in the air and Nibelheim once more becomes a distant dream in the fog and cold.

Sephiroth does not have it in him to hold a conversation, and Zack doesn’t seem to expect him to. Once or twice, he throws quick glances from the corner of his eye, as though he needs to assure himself that Sephiroth is there.

The first time he realizes Sephiroth has caught him, he chuckles.

“I know, I know,” his voice is cheery enough, despite the tense lines of his face, “But I really have no idea how to tell if you’re really okay. I mean, I guess you’d know better than anyone, but…”

Once they had both boarded and donned the headsets, so as not to have to yell to be heard, Sephiroth had immediately settled himself across all three of the passenger seats, padding the cheap, scratchy complementary company blanket beneath him. Now, he pushes himself upright, even though it makes his arms shake.

Zack has turned his attention back to the cockpit, almost hesitant.

“You… you really scared me, y’know? When Angeal was sick, it was terrible, because I couldn’t _do_ anything and he just kept getting worse. But… I kinda got used to it. He was sick, but it was almost… uniform. Like clockwork.”

Sephiroth stares hard at the back of Zack’s head and feels something rough and large twist within him. He hadn’t considered it, not really. Angeal’s degredation had affected everyone around him, and _they hadn’t known_ what it was, they were only able to watch Angeal die slow breath by slow breath, and Sephiroth _still_ almost just let him—

“But you,” Zack continues, voice tinny through the headset, “You were… fine, mostly. A little spacey and you always look tired, but you were fine, and then we stepped inside that room in the reactor and you just—”

He doesn’t say anything else. Shakes his head once, without looking back.

“It’s nothing, for—”

“I’m sorry.”

“What? What are you apologizing for?”

“I never meant to worry you.”

Zack laughs, but there’s no humor in it. It’s such a brittle sound that it could almost be mistaken for a sob.

“It’s just not _**fair**_ , shit. I thought I knew how bad ShinRa was when we were in Wutai, but the shit in that mansion… just _shit_ , man.”

Sephiroth hums.

Zack sighs and then tsks, voice rough:

“Fuckin’ Hojo, man.”

“Fuckin’ Hojo,” Sephiroth agrees, imitating Zack’s tone and inflection as best he can. The words are new on his tongue, but the tone is comforting, somehow. Once, when he was still training to use Masamune, he’d cut his palm attempting a Scintilla. The Turk overseeing his training had told him to just curse or hiss, and move on. Roll with the pain, they'd said, until you have the time to properly deal with it. It feels like that.

Zack laughs again, this time startled. And this time, it’s real.

* * *

“What—” Zack’s voice cuts off, all humor bled from him, sharp and sudden. The helicopter _swings_ and nausea rolls in Sephiroth’s stomach as he scrabbles desperately at the seats to stay upright. Zack isn’t looking back at him, though. He’s glaring forward and cursing under his breath.

Sephiroth twists until he can peer over the back of pilot’s seat.

Through the thick glass of the cockpit, Midgar is smoke and fire.

* * *

It turns out to be something of a false alarm. There had been some sort of grave malfunction with the monorail that threatened to compromise some of the structural integrity of the entire system. Their landing was long and tense, Zack arguing with whoever was manning the Control Tower, until they were finally cleared and allowed to land the chopper on the landing pad atop HQ.

Sephiroth finds himself in the hallway of the residential building, watching the monorail pass by and disappear beneath the Plate. Maybe it was some other line that was damaged? Angeal finds him like that, however many minutes, or hours, or days later.

“Have a nice trip?”

JENOVA was there, in his head, again. Valentine almost shot Zack. Sephiroth almost fought Valentine. The excess of Tonberries was _aggravating_. But Zack stayed, he hadn’t run away, even as Sephiroth fell to pieces. Valentine wasn’t _here_. JENOVA was buried under hundreds of metric tons of mako, hopefully being crushed to death.

“It was… an experience,” he tells Angeal, feeling the words out. His lips twitch, though whether to frown or smile, he can’t tell. More than anything, Nibelheim was… trying. Tiring.

Pressure on his arm. His feet move automatically, silent on the linoleum. Midgar passes by, hazy and bustling, through the streakless window.

“Sephiroth.”

He looks up. Angeal—where had Zack gone?—looks worried, brows furrowed and mouth pulled down in a frown. It’s dark, no, no, it’s dim. Smells like worn leather and those unobtrusive scented candles Angeal always burns.

“Sephiroth,” Angeal says his name again, reaching out slowly, one heavy hand falling to Sephiroth’s shoulder, “I need you to tell me what happened, what has _been_ happening.”

Sephiroth looks at him. For the first time in a long while, he really _looks_.

Because, things have changed— _he_ has changed things—and Angeal is no longer afraid, no longer flying away, no longer throwing himself upon the Buster Sword, no longer leaving Zack behind, red-eyed and distraught in the snow.

Angeal is still broad and warm, but he is smaller, now. Even cured of degradation and recovering, he’s not likely to regain all of the muscle he once had. His hair is still gray, nearly white, and shows no sign of darkening. There is still a tremble in his hands, a falter to his movements. He cannot yet reclaim the Buster Sword from Zack, if he ever will. His career as a First Class SOLDIER is not over, but he will never be what he once was, either.

This is the price Angeal has paid for Sephiroth’s cowardice. For Sephiroth’s betrayal.

That’s what it was, wasn’t it? A Betrayal? It was something, something that caused him to very nearly abandon Angeal the way he was once abandoned. Angeal was there, in that hospital bed, too weak to even hold himself up and Sephiroth almost didn’t stop the degradation in time, because… because he had forgotten, what it was to fear. It had been—so long, hadn’t it? Years, it might’ve been, must’ve been, that it was only his body and JENOVA’s will and Cloud. Sephiroth has never feared Cloud, only trusted in Cloud, to be able to find the strength to fight him again and again. And Cloud had always come through, in the end.

But, then, to be back—where things changed and changed and _keep_ changing, no matter if he does anything or not, and—well. Well, and Hojo. He had forgotten many things, if they were not Cloud or JENOVA or the feel of Masamune in his hand, sweeping in broad lines and drawing blood. He might’ve forgotten, but he has _always_ feared Hojo.

Sephiroth lets his eyes trace the thick line of Angeal’s jaw, clean-shaved and tan.

 _This might be the last time you see him_ , he thinks. The thought is clear, and loud. And it would be the last time, wouldn’t it? Zack had come back from Modeoheim with just the Buster Sword slung along his back like a specter of mourning haunting his every movement, his every breath, and his hands clenched into fists and his face forever scarred. There had been no remains, because man and monster alike returned to the Lifestream.

 _The **last** time_. The thought lingers, unwanted. He had been doing well, not thinking about it, but now—he must. He cannot move forward blindly. So he remembers. He remembers that he will not likely live to see the end of the season. He thinks of the dirt beneath his fingernails from Aerith’s flowers and he remembers those months—entire months, that he had only thought of as hours, days—where he felt alive, because he had been so daring, he had saved Angeal and he had killed Hojo and he had freed Nanaki and he had done those things because he could and he wanted to, and not because he was told.

What has his life been?

Decades beneath Hojo’s scalpel, in Hojo’s mako tanks, under Hojo’s thumb; that was no life. Has this second-first life been any better?

What has this life _been_?

Speaking to the Planet, feeling that immense presence folding over his own like the heave of the ocean carving away at the earth, unhurried and assured of its destructive beauty. Gaia’s words in his ear, unspoken but heard, a rush of thought-images and feeling-thoughts, a mural of screaming colors and bright sounds as she tore through his mind until she found what she wanted—Geostigma, Cloud’s arm leaking black pus, muscles trembling as he held First Tsurugi aloft to block the sharp edges of a Scintilla, Masamune singing as he swung it forward. Masamune singing as he slashed down to dull the strength of Cloud’s Cross Slash. Geostigma, another of Hojo’s lasting legacies, the taint of mako too strong and the slow trickle of the Lifestream too small to combat the evolutionary mutations, his Clones hastening it along in hopes of evoking a Reunion.

Those had been strange days, half-suspended in consciousness, peering through his Clones' eyes, through the eyes of the Infected, with JENOVA whispering, a smile in her voice, of how the end was so _close_. And then it was there, JENOVA’s head cradled to Kadaj’s chest and then Sephiroth was awake, was breathing again, Cloud bearing down on him in an overhead strike, and he called a palm’s width of Masamune to him, his control so amplified by JENOVA’s power, and then they fought again. The sky trembled in their wake, like the gods of old raining down judgement, uncaring of mortal loss.

Always fighting, he and Cloud, and he and Genesis. Even dying, blood spilling freely and skin pale, Genesis had goaded him, even as his organs shut down and he lost consciousness, and Sephiroth shoved the Holy Water down his throat, cold, stiff fingers rubbing along his trachea to make sure he swallowed. Genesis was always contrary, always pushing, even that very first day when Hojo led Sephiroth to a new part of the labs, and dismissively introduced Hollander and his ‘lesser subjects’, Genesis had scoffed the moment Hojo had turned away to gloat over Hollander at becoming the Department Head, Genesis had scoffed and then run his eyes up and down Sephiroth’s form—and what had he seen, Sephiroth wonders, in that small body, still growing and that pale skin and those dangerous eyes and that blank, blank face?—and he had scoffed again, mouth open to sneer something but Angeal had quelled him with a look and had smiled, and that is all they have been ever since.

Genesis’ face, full of disgust and betrayal and anger, and Sephiroth’s chest, heavy and full of hurt; even then, even _that_ was them. And Angeal, a slow-moving body on a bed that slowly grew to dwarf his diminishing form, begging with tears in his eyes, because no SOLDIER imagines dying of anything less than a fatal blow, and Sephiroth, nearly too slow to act, nearly too late; that had been them, too.

Slipping through his fingers like dust and ash, he is always _losing_ , even when nothing is the same.

No, not quite true. Nearly, almost, but—Aerith brings a sleeping pallet after the fifth time he shows up in the church, and he takes it with still hands, looking to her for her price, but she had only smiled and wished him a good night. He gave the pallet to Nanaki and continued to doze up in the aged rafters, running his fingertips along the smooth, worn wood. Nanaki had dragged the pallet up onto the window ledge and thanked him, not with words, but with the bulk of his body dragging heavy and warm against his legs and waist every time he slid past. It was how he knew things were different, were new and were good, because at first, Nanaki would not speak to him. When he had gone back, nearly frantic, sure that someone had discovered Hojo’s body and was waiting to drag him back into a mako tank until whatever faulty part of him was scrubbed clean, torn away, buried under too much mako to ever raise its feeble head again, there had been nothing but the low buzz of the fluorescent lights and the utter stillness of the quiet labs. He had entered, Masamune already drawn, only to stop short at the gleam of animal eyes from the largest cage. Nanaki had watched him, unmoving and ears forward, as he drove his fist into the control panel on the wall and then pulled every cage door from its base. Nearly everything was dead, except for the Dark Fang and that huge, red creature.

Do you want to leave, he had asked. Not twenty feet away, Hojo’s body was still lying slack, blood coagulating on the floor. The Dark Fang gave a growl and tore from its cage. He held the fire creature’s eyes even as the sound of parting flesh grew more and more wet. The fire creature nodded, slow. He turned and led it to Aerith. He returned and killed the Dark Fangs, the first having multiplied as it gorged itself. There wasn’t even blood left on the floor. Just flecks of Lifestream, spinning dizzily and fading away.

He had turned the lights off and locked the door and left.

Them, he could keep, because he had never had them before, and knew that if they stayed it was because he was doing something _right_ enough for them not to leave.

He thinks of the end: the blood in his brain, the twist in his nerves, the way his vision blurs and his mind wanders, rambling and stumbling over itself in a waterfall of thoughts-memories-hopes. Hojo’s vengeance from beyond the grave.

As if summoned, his temples begin to throb and he winces against the light, low as it is.

“Have you been sleeping well?” Angeal asks, hand still warm against Sephiroth’s shoulder. He sounds so worried, he _always_ worried even when Sephiroth told him not to—he has done this for years, hours, days, months, _always_ the first to lend a shoulder or an ear and Sephiroth was just going to let him **_die_** , for fear of a man who died unremarked and unmissed.

Sephiroth opens his mouth and—

The sound of knuckles striking wood sounds to him like a brief salvation, though by the look on Angeal’s face, he finds it nothing more than a nuisance.

It’s a Third Class, playing messenger. Tseng has called an interdepartment meeting, high priority, to be held in the Boardroom at noon.

Angeal cranes his neck into the hallway.

“That’s in a few minutes,” he frowns, arms folded in front of him. He turns his head, and the frown falls as he stares at Sephiroth, replaced with something—something else. Something soft, and kind, “We better head up.”

Today is a day better than those in Nibelheim. His legs are numb, barely there for all that he can feel them, but they carry him well enough. Angeal is walking away, leaving again—he always seems to be, no matter what Sephiroth does—but this time, Sephiroth can follow, will follow. This time, he will not be left behind.

He trails Angeal out of the room and his steps do not falter once.

* * *

Genesis is waiting, outside the boardroom.

“Well, then,” Genesis’ voice breaks through the haze of his wandering thoughts like the well placed strike that shatters a Protega, “You really _are_ sick, aren’t you? I thought such things only happened to us lesser mortals.”

“Genesis,” Angeal begins, voice hard.

Did they meet like this, Before, in Wutai? Then, he hadn’t seen the point in keeping in range of Genesis; they had vastly differing tactics and different ways of commanding their troops. He hadn’t thought it worth the endless LOVELESS quotes or snide remarks in the name of rivalry. Genesis had swept inwards, determined to take the mountains, where numerous groups lived and worked on the steppes, while Sephiroth had contented himself with a leisurely but unstopped pace towards the capital.

When had they even had the chance to talk? Angeal had not been sent in until ShinRa wanted to crush the Wutai resistance hard and fast, after negotiations with Godo fell through. By then Sephiroth had taken the capital, but could not hold it, not without losing too many of his men, and though ShinRa had demanded that he do whatever necessary, but even then, it felt strange to let others die where he could not. So he hadn’t.

Had they argued? Genesis had been the only one degrading, but a few well-placed implications would shake Angeal’s confidence. And none of them had ever had any love for ShinRa, or Hollander, or Hojo. And with how easily they left, they must not have held him or Zack in too high regard, either.

In that way, Genesis and Angeal’s defections were fortuitous, because the sudden scrutiny that Hollander fell under diverted attention from the fact that Sephiroth had all but ignored direct orders from within the highest authority within the company.

It hadn’t felt that way—fortuitous—because all he could see every time he blinked was Zack in a dying ring of Ifrit’s fire and neither Angeal nor Genesis anywhere to be found. He remembers, the way the words fell from his mouth, numb and mindless: ‘Angeal has betrayed us’. Zack had screamed, had refused to believe, had yelled Angeal’s name into that dark forest, over and over.

That was Zack, all over. Determined. Relentless. Banora went up in flames and explosions and still, Zack was determined to bring Angeal back. He was persistent. Until Modeoheim. Then he was… something else. Listless, maybe. Determined, but grim. Angeal was gone, leaving behind nothing but a Legacy. Zack had been a quiet kind of angry, more sad and wrong-footed than anything. His world had fallen apart and dissipated into the Lifestream, but ShinRa continued on. The world kept spinning. Genesis was still out there. Genesis was still there, was still something that could be confronted. A distraction. Sephiroth knew firsthand how easy a distraction Genesis could make.

Sephiroth had pulled himself back, and away, and it bothers him, now. Angeal and Genesis were his friends, his first and, for the longest, his only friends. He marched to ShinRa’s tune because it was all he knew how to do. But in that year, he exercised more will than in any of the years prior, refusing missions and delegating, and turning away and _hiding_ away. Angeal and Genesis were his friends; to spar against them in the VR room was one thing, but to hunt them down like vermin? He couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

But ShinRa wanted it done. Someone had to do it. Zack was all that was left. There were no others near strong enough.

That was true, but it wasn’t the _truth_. Zack had chosen to go after Angeal, hadn’t he? He’d _chosen._ They had all chosen their paths, in the end. And yet, Sephiroth cannot help but feel as though he drove the others off-road, into unknown darkness and misfortune (what had _happened_ to zack after nibelheim?).

“Oh yes,” Genesis drawls, the scoff and roll of his eyes apparent in his tone, “What ever would we do without _you_ around?”

It is teasing, he thinks. Maybe. Genesis has always tread that thin fine line between cattish antagonism and true malice, but he has always been unpredictable when it comes to Sephiroth. He hated to be shown up but Sephiroth had been squeezed into Hojo's mold of Perfection from birth. It was hard to compete with.

“Without me….” He can see it, like a mirage before him: the gray pallor to Genesis’ skin, the brittle gray hair, the desperate smirk on his face as he stands in the Nibelheim reactor, dumbapple in hand, verse spilling from his lips. Poorly made clones run amok in the streets, all wearing his face, baring his desperation, his sickness, his loss to the world.

The words leave his mouth with edges, those stoked embers coaxed into an inferno, aimed to **hurt**.

“Without me… you will **rot**. With me, you will **die**. Choose your fate, _friend_.”

Genesis says nothing. Angeal says nothing. There is a strong moment of nothing, of silence, and it feels heavy and wide-eyed, it feels like static and caught breath. His shoulders fall concave as he exhales, but he does not allow himself to slump. If he stops, he might never start again.

Sephiroth pushes the boardroom door open, can see that most of the others are already present and waiting.

Sephiroth leaves them behind in that loud quiet—for once, _he_ walks away—and lets the door swing shut behind him.

* * *

Tseng is already there, as are Scarlet and Heidegger and Lazard.

“General!” Heidegger is loud, _so_ loud, “It’s good to see you! We hear you’ve been under the weather recently.”

There are two other Turks standing near Tseng: one is taller and broader and is wearing a sleek pair of sunglasses despite the fact that it’s overcast today, the other is smaller, almost petite, and has hair like marbled glass.

The others make idle conversation while they wait. Sephiroth sits down at the head of the table and closes his eyes. He only opens them when Tseng clears his throat to call everyone to order.

Tseng opens his mouth to begin, but the door swings open and Zack strides in, already pulling the Buster Sword from his back.

“Your guy had a hard time finding me, I think,” he tells Tseng, a coy grin stretching his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes.

Tseng doesn’t sigh—he had curated a reputation of too much poise for that—but he levels Zack with a politely exasperated look, until the other man squirms.

Zack claps his hands together and holds them under his nose. It makes him look younger, wide-eyed and guileless, and Tseng—Tseng snorts. It’s a soft noise, likely only heard by the SOLDIERs in the room.

Zack grins, wide and cheery, and plops down in the chair to Sephiroth’s left.

“Thank you all for making your way here in a timely fashion,” Tseng says, gaze never once settling on one individual for too long, “It… saddens me to say that ShinRa Electric has quite the conundrum on its hands.”

Lazard sits up. Scarlet and Heidegger exchange glances.

“After the General’s handling of Godo and the end of the campaign against Wutai, Turk surveillance was put in place to monitor and remove any chance of a resurgent rebellion. However, shortly after ShinRa took leave from its shores, a large number of the remaining Wutaian population… disappeared.”

Tseng continues speaking, ignoring the slowly rising murmurs with a practiced ease, “We were easily able to track them to both Western and Eastern continent. They seemed to integrate well into the community, picking up odd jobs and starting their own small businesses.”

“Pardon me, Tseng, but what exactly is the relevance of this?” Scarlet drawls, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms underneath her breasts.

Tseng sighs, a sharp exhale through his nose. He turns his head ever so slightly to glance back at the tall, broad Turk by the window.

“Rude,” he says.

The Turk—Rude—walks over to the presentation stand and plugs in a small black device. The projector whirs, and a picture slowly starts to fade in.

“Is that the outside of HQ?” Angeal murmurs.

It is. It is a recording from… recently? The numbers looks familiar, in a vague sort of sense, but he’s not even sure what month it is, never mind the day.

“That’s from a few hours before we got back this morning, isn’t it?” Zack leans over to whisper. That answers that. He stares at the numbers again, trying to make enough sense of them in hopes that he might actually _remember_ the date after the meeting.

The screen shows HQ from four different angles: two focused on the front doors and two showing wider shots of the street, and in the distance, the edge of the Plate. The numbers in the corner run up and about thirty seconds in, the frames start to shake.

“I remember that,” Genesis hums, from somewhere behind him, “There was some announcement about a derailing train, maybe some structural damage.”

Sephiroth expects to see a train derailing, or some sort of crash. Instead, a large shape slowly peaks up from the visible edge of the Plate. A scaled snout, jaw agape to reveal hundreds of long, thin and _sharp_ teeth. The shape rises, further and further up, and one huge eye—easily the size of one of Scarlet’s useless machines—rolls, until a gleaming silver pupil pins its gaze onto the doors of ShinRa HQ. It is _not_ a train.

The camera frames are still shaking, but more slowly. The dragon’s jaw—too long to be Bahamut, maybe one of Hojo’s many variations?—stretches and it _screams_.

At least, he assumes so. There’s no audio to the recording, but from the way that other buildings starts to crumble and the way that the cameras break into sudden static, he can only imagine how piercing the noise was.

There is a silence.

“Well, what the hell was that?” Scarlet demands.

The other Turk, silent until now, steps forward. Tseng does not introduce her.

“We think,” she begins, slowly and obviously picking her words with care, “that it was a test.”

“A _test_?” Scarlet scoffs, “For what, Doomsday? That… _thing_ was probably bigger than the Plate itself!”

The smaller Turk nods to Rude, and the recordings are replaced with photos.

“Around the same time that the Plates were attacked, there were a string of riots in the slums. A lot of ShinRa property was damaged, and they almost overran the trains. The timing was too precise for it to be anything other than a coordinated two-prong attack,” she reports.

There are pictures of people atop buildings, of people in the streets, throwing things, of people mobbing the train stations and pictures of burning buildings.

“But the fact that the overall damage was relatively little means that this was probably nothing more than a test run, to see how we deal with multiple attacks at once.”

Lazard has his hands folded tightly in front of his face when he says, “You think there’s going to be another attack. Soon.”

“If you could all remain on standby within HQ for the next few days, it would be greatly appreciated,” the non-answer is accompanied by a demure, polite smile. She steps back and Tseng steps forward in her place.

“It appears,” Tseng tells them, eyes tight and mouth almost a grimace, “that ShinRa is at war with Wutai once more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every single one of my notes for this chapter is some variation of "gods above someone **_help_** this poor miserable child"
> 
> thank you all so much for your comments and kudos and bookmarks(!!!)!! in case yr interested, i have a [writing/art tumblr](http://manymouths.tumblr.com) where i post outtakes, excerpts, future fic ideas and general status updates (and i am always up for answering questions or chatting about whatever so)


	6. we journey towards a home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is no hero.
> 
> Even the mere thought of it is laughable. Him, of the bloodsoaked blade and the monstrous parentage? No, he is not that. He has never been that, no matter what Genesis had thought.
> 
> And yet.
> 
> And yet.
> 
> And yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we are at last, friends.

> _We journey towards a home that does not halo our head with a special sun._
> 
> _Mythical women applaud us. A sea for us, a sea against us._
> 
> Mahmoud Darwish, _We Journey Towards A Home_

* * *

It takes Tseng some time to review the entirely of ShinRa’s wartime defense protocols; unlike the offensive protocols, much of their overall firepower is to be redirected to fortify Midgar and, more importantly, President ShinRa and ShinRa HQ by extension.

Just as Tseng is about to dismiss them, the door opens.

Another Turk—Sephiroth _knows_ him, doesn’t he? He’d scaled the wall in a fluid motion of muscle and momentum, fingers scraped raw against rough concrete, and these humans were _so_ interesting, he’d thought, shifting on the balls of his feet to float under the mag rod streaking towards his face—strides in, hands shoved in his pockets and pointedly disinterested in the fact that he has just interrupted a meeting of the most influential members of ShinRa’s professional staff. His hair is very red, his suit very rumpled and the easy smirk on his face is very dangerous.

“Bad news, Boss,” he tells Tseng.

Tseng doesn’t sigh, but he looks very dearly as though he wants to.

The red Turk ambles over to the broad one—Rude, wasn’t it?—and switches out the small black device for a similarly small blue one. Where the camera recordings were once projected, there is now the still image of… Hojo’s labs.

If Sephiroth does not flinch, it is because he is holding himself too tightly for the reaction to show.

“Seems like the good doctor went in a bad way, Boss,” the red Turk drawls, shrugging a shoulder.

The labs in the picture are not the labs that Sephiroth left behind. That, and that alone, allows him to loose a tense exhale through his nose.

The cages set into the wall have been torn, trashed, as though something bulldozed its way through them, baring wires and foundation. A few of the light fixtures are hanging broken from the ceiling. There are huge rents in the sterile metal autopsy tables. The tile is cracked.

Across the floor, written in what is most likely blood, are the words _**YOU WERE SLOPPY**_.

Sephiroth knows the words are for him. What he doesn’t know is who left them there.

“The blood came back as a match to Hojo’s. Forensics think whatever he had locked up in there broke out and engaged in a little karmic retribution. The creepy message implies some kind of debt or payback,” the red Turk reports. It’s information that is clearly meant for Tseng, but none of the Turks make any effort to be discrete about it, especially considering that all the department Directors are still present and in full view of the evidence.

From his peripheral he can see Scarlet’s hands move towards her face, as though to cover her mouth. Zack’s arms move as well, but lower, and more thoughtful than fearful.

The Turks think that one of Hojo’s experiments turned on him. They’re not wrong.

Tseng runs a casual eye over them, taking note of their individual reactions, before he hones in on Sephiroth.

“General. Any ideas?”

It takes _effort_ to move his tongue, to open his mouth. He can’t stop staring at the screen, at the images.

“Lieutenant Fair— _General_ Fair and I went to Rocket Town to search one of Hojo’s smaller private labs. It had seen recent use, but… nothing to suggest this.”

The words come smoothly, for all that his mouth is dry and his tongue feels like lead.

If Tseng knows otherwise—where they really went, and why—he doesn’t say so. He turns back to the red Turk and says, “While I’m glad it’s been brought to my attention, any pending investigations will have to wait until the current threat against the company is resolved.”

The red Turk shrugs, like it doesn’t matter to him either way, and then smirks, “You’re the boss, Boss.”

Tseng narrows his eyes and opens his mouth—

And the building begins to shake.

* * *

There’s a standard operating procedure in the case of direct assaults on ShinRa HQ. It runs along the lines of throwing half the armed forces at the intrusion and throwing everything else into protecting the president and other members of the upper echelon. There are no contingencies for the rest of Midgar.

The alarms are wailing—a shrill, constant whine accompanied by bright, flashing lights—and a prerecorded voice is giving evacuation instructions.

Sephiroth does not know where to go. Likely because he slipped from the board room before Tseng gave any orders. He can still see Hojo's labs, an artful ruin.

There are workers—office workers, janitorial staff—bustling by quietly, evacuating efficiently as though it’s just another drill. For all they know, it might be.

He stands there, watching them part and flow around him, unbothered by the obstruction he presents. A pair of women dressed in sharp suits are conversing in hushed whispers as they stalk towards the emergency exit. One splits to his left, and the other to his right, but they keep talking without pause.

The alarms continue to scream—

Apparently the good professor hadn’t accounted for _**this**_ , or at the very least, for his absence when it occurred. There aren’t any scientists or guards or _anyone_ , just dusty old computers and stagnant mako-filled tanks and an entire chest full of experimental materia. They find clothes in the armory, along with their weapons.

Kadaj grabs Souba with a child’s eager possessiveness, and Loz pulls down Dual Hound with excessive care. Of the two of them, Loz has always paid more attention to weapons maintenance. He steps forward last, unhurried. He might be the oldest—none of them know, really, and they can hardly _ask_ —but if Kadaj is their Brother’s spirit and Loz is His strength, then _he_ likes to think himself the experience; the maturity that comes from having been forged into the perfect weapon from conception. He grabs materia first and then plucks Velveteen Nightmare off the rack with deft fingers.

Then he spins on one heel and shoots the PA speakers until the damn alarm finally _stopped_ —

“Sephiroth!”

The hallways is still emptying of janitors and secretaries and managers. The alarm lights are still flashing in a staccato beat, but it is silent.

Zack makes his way past the last straggling group of older managers with a smile that almost shines with how plastic and rigid it seems on his face.

“You okay?” is the first thing he asks when he reaches Sephiroth, “You were just kinda standing here.”

Sephiroth blinks.

His fingers ache, oddly sore. The speakers are spitting small sparks and fizzling.

“I’m unsure of where I should go.”

Zack raises an eyebrow and then pulls his PHS from one of his uniform’s many pockets.

“You didn’t get Tseng’s super helpful memo?” he grins, waving the device, “Here, I’ll forward it to you.”

Sephiroth watches him for a moment—Zack pecks at the keys with his index finger, and is even slower to respond to messages than Angeal, who will only reply from his computer, or Genesis, who composes half-minded messages while reading, and usually winds up talking about _Loveless_ in the end, anyway.

Then he frowns, and turns his gaze downward, trying to think of the last time he even _saw_ his own PHS. He didn’t have it Nibelheim, or when he was in the church. Did he have it in Wutai? Did he have it _before_ Wutai? They’re company-issued, so he had to have had one, at some point.

He wonders, how many of Lazard’s calls and Tseng’s memos he’s missed, over the past year.

“I don’t have it… on me,” he says, after a moment. Zack stops tapping at the screen to glance up at him.

“You waited til I typed the whole thing?” Zack grimaces.

Sephiroth frowns.

“What whole thing? All you have to do it type my name.”

Zack opens his mouth with eyebrows raised, and then scowls, though it turns into a grin after a moment.

“I’m gonna kick Cloud’s ass. He had me convinced you need to copy the entire message, that _little shit_.”

“Cloud?” Sephiroth’s tongue drags against the back of his teeth and they need to find their other Brother, he feels so bright against the smudged backdrop of mediocre humans, every pore filled with Mother’s light—

“—ey, hey, Sephiroth, man, _look at me_.”

Underneath the flashing halogen lights, Zack is refulgent, a body made celestial.

This time, he doesn’t ask if Sephiroth is alright.

“Tseng wants us on the streets doing damage control, in case that dragon shows up again,” he says instead, one hand still grasping Sephiroth’s shoulder.

They don’t talk on the way out, down crumbling staircases and past toppled plants and displays. The tremors grow stronger and last longer, until they bleed into one constant, unbalancing _pulse_.

Genesis and Angeal are waiting outside the main doors, weapons drawn.

“How fashionably late of you two,” Genesis scoffs, but there’s no bite to his words. If anything, he looks… discomfited, almost awkward. Angeal looks much the same; both are standing with their bodies angled towards him but their shoulders loose and postures open. Hesitant, maybe.

Afraid.

The idea makes his skin prickle, makes his throat itch. He hadn’t thought they would ever—though, he hasn’t exactly been of a fair mind.

Later. He can’t do anything about it now, and he won’t worry when there’s a battle to be had.

The streets are chaos; people running, screaming, crying. He can almost taste the ozone in the air from the residual magic, and his eyes find the clouds automatically. It had been overcast, and that hid the array from sight long enough for Yazoo to pump as much MP into the summoning as he could, Loz with him to hand over elixir after elixir. Bahamut wasn’t typically so costly, but dual casting was a trying experience, let alone across such a distance. Not to mention that the genetically modified variants they’d recovered from the labs were a class all on their own, and Yazoo greatly favored Bahamut SIN; it had a great deal of strength and enough MP of its own to cast elemental attacks. Mother would be proud, _so_ proud, and he would get to join with her, there would be a grand Reunion and they would bring Brother back. They would bring the Calamity. Their other Brother was around, somewhere, trying to hide among the vermin, but he’d hear the call all the same and—

and—

there was snow under his feet, it compacted under his weight, the air was cold and biting against his skin—no, no snow it was dirt and leaves and the trees were bare but huge, climbing into the sky like twisted bones and mud gave way to water, there was a vessel close by he could hear the rapid beating of its heart and smell the green ozone of mako in its veins, this world was but a thing to be conquered to be held in the palm of his hand and _crushed_ at his whim, mother knew best, mother would guide him, would order him—it always came down to orders, orders, _orders_ , enough to make him sick to make him weep to make the taste of blood and the ash of burned bodies stick to his tongue, to choke him, and he would deserve it, would welcome it, would welcome anything that was not swinging his blade to the tune of war, to the tune of imperial conquest, what was he if not a tool, what was he beyond a tool, what was he, _what **was** he_ —and the impact of the strike jarred him, vibrated through his bones, even as he blocked it, and that was Cloud, once and always fighting til the last, defeated but never losing and how many times had this scene played out before, how many days weeks months years decades centuries would it be until Cloud could finally kill him until JENOVA stopped bringing him back _until he was dead_ like he should’ve been so long ago. _you will sleep when this planet is  dust_ JENOVA cries, but even she is a relic, just pieces of what once was, desperate so desperate that it _hurt_ , the remnants sharp and parasitic, digging in and _twisting-pulling_ his body his mind he was so tired, when would it end when would Cloud succeed Cloud had to succeed, when would he finally be allowed to _rest_ —

and—

It was like looking through a broken kaleidoscope, like catching sight of a reflection through warped glass, there was a buzz or a hum or a whisper or a shriek, light refracting in too many directions to keep track of. He didn’t know a Yazoo, or a Loz. He didn’t have a Vessel. He didn’t have any siblings. He didn’t have a Mother—

No, no, he _remembered_. There had been green, but sickly and too sharp, almost acid. And it hadn’t been him, not all the way, more like a simulation, almost, watching through eyes that weren’t his own. There had been a summons, huge and fearsome and it had drawn out Cloud and his ilk. The Geostigma, the black water, feeling of latent power spread through so many bodies but all connected. The boy, the clone, the Remnant—Kadaj, his name was _Kadaj_ —and a piece of JENOVA. Only a piece. It had been enough, and he had opened his eyes, and opened his palm and felt the vibrations of Cloud’s desperate overhead strike bounce off Masamune. He had smiled, and drawn blood. Cloud had killed him and _still_ he had not died. What would it _**take**_ —?

How had he forgotten that?

“—tor Three. What about you two?”

“Sector Seve—wait, Sephi—”

Why did he _remember_ it?

“—th? Sephiroth!”

Air. Sharp and sudden as his inhale, almost choking him. One of his hands is curled, claw-like, around the half-summoned shape of Masamune. A body flinches back. Two others twitch forward.

Sephiroth manages to draw his eyes up, following the would-be line of Masamune’s blade with his eyes.

It would’ve gored Angeal in the side like the horn of a Behemoth. The pallor of Genesis’ face and the tight lines around Zack’s eyes says neither of them would’ve moved in time.

“Sorry,” Angeal breathes out in a rush, hands drawn back defenselessly, “Sorry. You got a little… lost, there.”

Sephiroth cannot speak for all the desperate, panicked heaving of his lungs. He swallows, forces his hand to unfurl and pointedly does not watch Masamune’s hilt dissolve into light and space.

“We’re going beneath the Plate, starting with Sector Three. You’ll stay here,” Genesis drawls, and it would sound nothing out of the ordinary but for the quiver in his voice. He might fear _for_ Sephiroth as much as he fears Sephiroth, by now. Maybe.

The thought brings little comfort. Cold ironies.

“Listen,” Zack cuts in. Sephiroth hadn’t thought to notice until now, but the Buster Sword still rests heavy on his back, cutting him an impressive figure. Angeal has two smaller claymores on him instead.

“Stay Safe,” Zack tells them, eyes amaranthine and unrelenting, and Sephiroth remembers now that this Zack—not the Zack he left behind, nor the one he forgot—is his equal in rank.

“Strike True,” Zack tells them, and Sephiroth wishes he was surprised that Zack would know these words, from years too long gone when three boys called soldiers stood together instead of apart.

Angeal chuckles, low and rueful.

“Pup’s all grown up,” he sighs wistfully, hands on his hips, “I think we three could learn something from him.”

Genesis snorts, and throws his coat into a twirl as he turns to leave.

But all the same—because even he is not above the weight of those words, no matter who says them—he returns, “Strike True, young Fair. You as well, Sephiroth.”

“Stay Safe,” Angeal meets Sephiroth’s eyes and smiles, before he pulls Zack into a rough hug, complete with hair ruffling, “The both of you.”

Then they are gone, walking away from him—from them both—again. But this time, nothing in him rages. He would go so far as to say that he feels… heartened. They have not drifted so. They are but there if he were to seek them.

“You’ll be fine.”

Sephiroth looks away from where Angeal and Genesis once stood and meets Zack’s gaze. It is a trying task, to meet those violet eyes and not falter. Leadership and Authority and _Strength_ rest on his shoulders like they grew there, and he carries them unburdened by their weight.

Zack claps a hand around his shoulder and, without hesitation, draws him into a hug.

Sephiroth trips into it, uneven on his feet and harshly aware of his own awkwardness. His hands tremble and hover, and he has no idea what to do with them. Zack’s arm is curled around the back of his neck, and the crown of his head is pressed firm to Sephiroth’s shoulder.

“You’re gonna be okay,” Zack mumbles into the leather of Sephiroth’s jacket, and where it should sound like a plea, Sephiroth instead hears a promise.

* * *

Zack has gone to Sector Seven, and Angeal and Genesis are in Sector Three. He assumes the other SOLDIERs are similarly deployed, spread out to direct civilians and contain any hostile forces.

It cannot have been that long since the board meeting. The ground is still rumbling, concrete rolling and cracking and baring ribs of foundation and rebar—

Just like in the video, that massive head slowly rises even with and then above the edge of the Plate, like a cresting whale, until it looms over everything, casting a shadow that all but blots out the sky.

Heavy steam is wafting through the streets, residual energy from the summoning, and Sephiroth can only image how terrifyingly _capable_ their enemy is, to utilize a summons in this way. Even Genesis would have a hard time summoning a Bahamut with this much energy in it. Even _Yazoo_ —

It’s not Bahamut SIN. Of course it isn’t, there’s no way it could’ve been, had Hojo even created it yet? But, still, there had been something, some small part of him that had felt the tremors and had seen the thick clouds and _knew_. But it’s not, and he knew that, too. He’d seen the surveillance tapes.

The snout is too narrow, the head too long. The body is too sinuous, there are no bulky wings, no strange jaws. It is…

His mind stutters. Stumbles. It can’t be. It could.

The creature—wyrm? dragon?—exhales, sending out a billowing wave of steam as it bares its long teeth and lowers its head. Lower and lower, until those giant reptilian eyes are once again level with the streets. Sephiroth stares at it.

It _can’t_ be. No one has seen that summons in _decades_ —but. If it were. If it is. It _fits_.

The serpent – the _sea serpent_ – lets its jaw hang open. Its neck bulges with coiled muscle.

“Leviathan. _Leviathan_.” The name spills from his mouth in a whisper, syllables clashing together like a curse, like a prayer.

Leviathan _**screams**_.

* * *

He is no hero.

Even the mere thought of it is laughable. Him, of the bloodsoaked blade and the monstrous parentage? No, he is not that. He has never been that, no matter what Genesis had thought.

And yet.

And yet.

And yet.

Masamune finds its way into his hand, with hardly a thought.

What is he doing?

It’s curious; his head is so _clear_ now, it’s a wonder he’s gotten anything done at all before. Everything is… distant. So many things have happened, and only few of them intentional. JENOVA is out of the picture. Hojo is dead. Angeal and Genesis are not. Zack is not. Aerith is not. He is not, for what that is worth.

What _is_ it worth?

He has stuttered and stumbled and tripped and fallen his way to a certain sort of victory—a slew of successes, at the very least. He has slogged through mission after damnable mission, through day after damnable, transient day.

How long since he blinked his eyes and saw a SOLDIER before him? How many times has he died, only to wake again? How long since he has lived out of anything other than habit?

What is he doing?

The streets are full of screaming, of crying. There is rubble and fire and he can smell sweat and fear. It is human to fear that which can kill you. But what can kill him: accursed, ruinous, _harbinger_? He does not fear.

(he fears that there will be no end, that he will _live_ and _live_ and _**live**_ )

He is not human. He is monster, he is spawn, he is Calamity-reborn, he is—

Not alone. Oh.

 _I want to sleep. I want to stop fighting. Please._ That is all he wants, all he has ever wanted, since he wandered into Nibelheim and learned what he was.

She knows this. She has always known. The ground shakes beneath his feet. The air is full of dirt and smoke. There is the groan of twisting metal and warping concrete.

She waits, calmly. She wants for nothing.

He does not want this. He has never wanted this.

 _Please._ He is but that sloe-eyed child of pale skin and bright eyes who was more ghost that human, more memory than life. Even now, even so. He is tired of fighting. Even for himself.

Angeal and Genesis and Zack. Aerith and Nanaki. Cloud, even.

She waits, unmoving. Watching.

 _Promise me_ , it has the shape of a demand but it is a plea. A stifled cry in the dark of night, skin slick with sweat and temples throbbing, the image of death-but-not-dead after death-but-not-dead imprinted into the back of fluttering eyelids.

 _Promise me_.

She folds him into Herself, like arms curling around his shoulder and cradling his head. Everything is green again, but soft this time, almost gentle. Like still waters or calm skies. Everything is warm and green and gentle, and he has never felt so—so— _calm_? At peace? Small? He has never _felt_ before this, with the sensitive pores of his skin, but also with the taste of salt on his tongue and the heady thrumming in his temples.

Energy is flowing. Up and down and in and out. Coming and going. He can feel it pulling and pushing like high tide, he can feel it spinning and rolling like moons in orbit. He can feel it burning and pulsing like distant stars. Lights flickering out into dark nothingness. Nothingness bursting into light.

He could sink into Her. He _wants_ to. But, will She let him?

 **Do this**. She tells him. She does not explain what ‘this’ is, only unfolds Herself and draws away. He does not feel cold or hollow, but She takes a piece of him away with Her all the same.

 _Please_ , he whispers again, wishing She had donned another human face, even if another that hated him. He stands little hope of truly understanding Her when She is nothing but the certain feeling that he has been found lacking.

An eternity passes, and a million stars live and die, thousands of planets collide and explode and are born.

 **Do this, and we shall see** , She finally answers, and Her words strike him, the vibrations ringing off his bones because he _knows_ them, like he knows the flow of his (cursed) blood and the glow of his (calamitous) eyes.

* * *

How long has it been?

Since he has held Masamune in his hands with the intent to defend, instead of defile?

Leviathan is terrifying, huge and serpentine and very, very angry.

The Plates are groaning, warping, twisting, but he can’t worry about them. He has to trust in Angeal and Genesis and Zack. He has to believe that the Turks are taking care of everything else. And he will take care of Leviathan.

The streets are mostly empty, now. There is still the smell of panic and fear in the air, but he can’t hear anyone.

There is just Leviathan, and him.

His fingers tighten on Masamune’s hilt, and the blade gleams. How long has it been since he raised his blade, _eager_ to fight? Too long. Too long by far. His lips curl into a small smile, one he can hardly help. The giddy _eagerness_ buoys in his chest, enamored at the thought of testing his Blade against a legendary summons long since thought lost.

Leviathan is a massive, gargantuan pile of muscle and teeth. He’s not sure if it’s because of the amount of magic put into the summoning or if Leviathan is just naturally a behemoth of a sea serpent, but he’s hardly bigger than the smallest of its fangs. Attempting a summon of his own would be not only a waste of time, but of magic as well, since he can’t think of even _one_ summon that could match Leviathan in size, let alone in raw power. He checks his bangle; the materia slots are equipped with Thundaga, All, Barrier, and Gravira, all fully mastered.

If he’s lucky—which he’d be a fool to bet on—then Leviathan _might_ have a weakness to Thunder-based attacks. He’s quickest at casting status magicks, but elemental damage is always easier to cast than other spells, so he’ll need at least a few seconds respite if he has any hope of using Gravira or Barrier, which means that for the most part, he’ll have to rely on speed and his mastery over Masamune.

Without further pause he leaps, sudden and sure, and the momentum takes him higher and higher, closer and closer yet to Leviathan’s massive head.

The sea serpent tracks his movements easily and lets loose a deep, rattling hiss in warning.

He reaches the apex of his jump and swings Masamune in a diagonal strike, almost hard enough to strain his arm. The Shukuchi whines through the air, sharp lines of wind and energy lashing deep into Leviathan’s scales; the serpent flinches away and _shrieks_ , and the shrill pitch of the sound alone—this close—is enough to send him hurtling back down towards the ground, ears ringing.

He catches himself and manages to land on his feet, crouching to soften the impact, but he barely has time to stand upright before he’s pulling Masamune overhead to parry Leviathan’s gargantuan teeth snapping at his face. The fangs and the Damascus steel draw sparks between them and Sephiroth staggers back a half-step. He uses the retreat to _push_ and when Leviathan’s head draws back, he whips his blade forward into an Octaslash before the beast can lunge forward for another attempt.

The strikes make heavy percussive noises as they impact with Leviathan’s scaly hide, but appear to do little else. He throws another Octaslash and immediately follows it up with a Scintilla, but Leviathan presses into the attack and the blows soften to almost nothing.

Sephiroth frowns and makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat. Leviathan is simply _too big_ ; if Sephiroth were to focus all of his attacks on the sea serpent’s vulnerable spots then he would not be able to spare the effort of watching its entire body, leaving himself vulnerable to an attack from the side or behind. Conversely, if he were to try and contain Leviathan’s movements with his blade, he would have fewer chances to strike directly.

He could stop Leviathan, perhaps.

But how quickly?

Soon enough to stop it from further destroying Midgar? The Plates already look half-toppled, and he can only imagine the structural damage incurred if the serpent slithered its way up from the slums.

Slowly, Sephiroth raises his right hand into the air. He curls his fingers to grasp and _pulls_. Without even looking up, he knows that the clouds have darkened and begun to converge. The sky rumbles.

Leviathan shrieks in challenge, jaw wide and baring hundreds of curved, serrated fangs.

Sephiroth pops the Thundaga from its slot and palms it. He doesn’t need to touch it to cast, but he’s learned that physical contact offers a finer degree of control when casting. The materia begins to warm in his palm and he pulls the clouds in closer, and darker.

“Thundaga,” he whispers, directing the flow of the magic from himself and aiming it at Leviathan’s eyes.

The storm clouds flash and a bolt of lightning nearly as thick as Leviathan itself strikes down in quick, booming arches.

Leviathan thrashes and screams, the noise drowned out by the repeated strike of lighting, dancing along its scales. When the spell ends, Leviathan is still twitching from the effects, body smoking and head swaying back and forth dizzily.

Sephiroth uses its moment of disorientation to leap forward and unleash a barrage of Iai strikes, immediately following it up with Shinsoku, though neither attack seems to be particularly effective. Somehow, between his very first strike and his second, Leviathan’s defense seems to have risen exponentially.

The large serpentine body shudders and writhes and just as Sephiroth is bringing Masamune level for Koku, a tidal wave materializes and crests before rushing down to overwhelm him. The water pushes him, knocks him off his feet and even as it tosses him, one wave swirls and spears itself towards him. The spike of ice—nearly as long as he is tall—catches him through the shoulder and he goes crashing to the ground.

Before he can even get his feet beneath him, he finds himself throwing himself backwards again, out of the path of another wave turned spear of ice. It scratches at his face even as he dodges, and slams back into the rest of the water within enough force to shatter. He uses the thin edge of Masamune to cut off the excess ice still sticking out of his body; the rest of it is still piercing the muscle of his arm and chest and Leviathan is leaving him little time to tend to it.

Leviathan can cast its own magic. Leviathan can cast water _and_ ice magic. This can _not_ be a regular Summons.

With every twist and ripple of scale and muscle, another tidal wave crests and hardens into ice and launches itself at Sephiroth. His shoulder is numb with pain from that first hit, and his arm is slow to respond.

He may be ambidextrous, but this is not a battle he can afford to fight handicapped.

He slips the Thundaga materia back into its slot and staggers backwards, putting more distance between himself and—

He curls his fingers tighter to grip Dual Hound, the leather wraps squeaking in protest. Bahamut SIN is shrieking overhead and he can feel their Other Brother doing— _something_ , something bright and loud, but he doesn’t have the time to look, not with the two Turks bothering him and Yazoo, stopping them from finding Mother.

 _Don’t cry_ , Yazoo tells him without saying, and he’s not, he’s _not crying_ , but Mother isn’t with them, not really, and neither is Brother and their other Brother doesn’t _want_ to be, and none of this is how it was supposed to be. He almost wishes they hadn’t left the labs, but that would be a terrible wish; the labs were cold and empty and full of needles. He drives his fist into the ground and the larger Turk takes huge half-skips back to avoid the shockwaves. Yazoo is saying something to the other Turk—nimble, with hair like a Firaga gone out of control—and Kadaj is nearby, somewhere—

His lips curl, jagged edges to a piecework rictus grin and his fingers tug and the sky ignites and the Plates topple and the world _bows_ —fire dancing in the sky, kissing the rocky dips of the comet—black materia, _black materia_ , he charged it with a grin, knowing nothing could ruin his Mother’s—

Plan. He needs a plan, needs something other than a mind full of someone else’s memories and his own failings.

If he can stun or pin the sea serpent long enough, he can cast enough consecutive Thunder spells to defeat it—enough to destabilize the summoning matrix, or to exhaust the materia. Leviathan hisses, breath hot and thick like steam, and directs another tsunami with its pointed fins. Sephiroth leaps back, leather duster snapping around him.

If he puts enough energy into a Gravira spell, he might be able to slow it down long enough. He jumps over another wave of ice spikes and grips Masamune’s hilt with both hands, bringing the blade down in a quick cluster of heavy-handed strikes. Leviathan screeches and twists away, bleeding.

But again, it would be nigh impossible for him to cast a spell large enough to effect _all_ of Leviathan, especially by himself. Yazoo could’ve done it, and Genesis probably could as well, but although he had larger magic reserves than most other SOLDIERs, he is hardly a mage and he rarely deigns to cast magicks at all. He would have to focus the spell, aim it, if he were to cast it at all.

The head is the most obvious choice, he thinks, spinning away from Leviathan’s snapping jaws and countering with a harsh, sweeping slice. However, he hardly thinks that Leviathan would just sit there and allow itself to be trapped.

Unfortunately, he can do nothing but try.

He slips into a side stance, feet angled apart and waits for Leviathan’s massive had to shift down and lunge at him. He dodges one strike, and then another, but then—

He stares at the man, cloaked and smooth-voiced and he sneers. All that comes from a ShinRa’s mouth is filth and tripe. It would be so easy, he thinks, to draw Souba and finally put an end to the ShinRa line once and for all. But he can’t, because this vile human, in his pressed white suit, sitting pretty while his Turk lapdogs watch on with caution, this _man_ has Mother. ShinRa knows where she is and he’s _keeping it to himself_ , like he thinks it’s some sort of clever game.

It is _never_ a game, where Mother is concerned. He lifts one arm and it becomes something else—not his, but Yazoo’s, but theirs, but their Brother’s—and he can feel the tickle of magic surging through the blood and marrow and veins and bones, and the summoning matrix grows brighter and brighter until Bahamut SIN crawls out of it and bellows its triumph to the skies.

And then his arm fell and he was no one but himself, a part of something only _just_ incomplete, again. He turned to smile at the humans, but then ShinRa was standing and he had his filthy hands on _Mother, **how dare he**_ —

Sephiroth hisses a sharp breath between his teeth, dizzy from rage that isn’t his, from a battle he isn’t fighting, and dizzy with pain that is his own, from Leviathan’s serrated, honed fangs tearing into his already injured shoulder.

He almost doesn’t understand, can't process it, is too focused on savaging his lips bloody with the effort it takes not to scream, too focused on thoughts of _Mother Mother Mother I’m Coming Mother Wait For Me_ , and before he can even think, Leviathan swings its heads wildly, jaws parted and he goes flying, bloodied and dazed and—

The concrete is cold and hard and it knocks the breath out of him, and he can’t get his balance, and where is Masamune?

He goes to spread his fingers along that familiar invisible path, to summon the sword back from his from wherever it’s gotten to—

Masamune materializes, his bloodied arm still holding tight to the hilt.

His vision dips and swims and slides, even as he turns frantic eyes to his shoulder—bloodied and empty of arm. Blood loss. Shock.

No time. _No time_ , he can hear the scrape of scale over pavement, dragging itself closer.

With a shaky breath, he reaches out with his good hand—his _only_ hand, no, no time to _think_ —and grabs the dismembered one. He holds it close, presses it to his shoulder and—his breath shakes again, because he had forgotten, for a moment, that he could bleed like a human, even as he had forgotten that he was _not_ human, and he can feel it when the flesh takes. He can feel it, joints slotting into place, veins and capillaries connecting.

A smile finds its way to his face, ugly and reproachful. How had he _ever_ mistaken himself for human?

It won’t hold, he thinks, flexing stiff fingers. His shoulder is still bleeding, and he can feel the sting of open air on the wound. He can’t feel the arm much, but he can move it. He can still hold Masamune, through muscle memory if nothing else.

It will have to do, because Leviathan has reached him in a sinuous movement of coiled muscle, and the beast will allow him no rest.

Sephiroth lifts Masamune into an offensive guard position, and when the sea serpent brings its gargantuan head to strike, he twists the blade to parry and at the same moment unleashes the Gravira he’d been building up.

It slams into Leviathan from above, hitting dead center in the middle of its broad, flat skull and it cries as the weight of the spell batters it to the ground and continues to bear down. Sephiroth grins, heady and thrilled with his own success and just as he starts to cast a chain of thunder spells, Leviathan’s body _heaves_ and the very end of its tail—still twice as thick as he is tall—smacks into his chest and sends him speeding backward, through a wall or two.

By the time he pulls himself free of the rubble, Leviathan has managed to squirm out of the Gravira’s range and when it sees him, it snarls, a trumpet of noise and movement.

He snarls back, and side steps a leaping wave of water with a spin, sending three Scintillas as he pivots. He almost had it, he almost _had it_ , he needs some way to keep Leviathan contained, but if it were as easy as that, he would not have to wrack his brain so _frantically_. Another shower of Blizzaga spikes rains down, and his raises Masamune to meet them, parting ice and pushing the shattered remains away with a Reaper slash; his deadened arm twinges with the effort, but the attack connects, the three quick slashes catching the ice and dispersing it.

He had it, he _had_ her, he holds her close, whispers _mother mother I have you I’m here_ and she reaches out, weakened but never weak and he reaches back and even though their Other Brother has finally decided to show up, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t _matter_ , because big Brother was coming, because he had done it, he _had_ it—

Sephiroth skips backwards, feet sliding across wet concrete, before he _jumps_ , high and fast towards Leviathan’s head. It weaves away from him, long neck coiled defensively and he points Masamune down and _pushes_ , falling into a Gokumon. The blow connects and knocks the serpent’s head down.

The materia gleams as he powers it, and within seconds the Barrier flashes into existence—around Leviathan. Without pause, Sephiroth draws a phial from the depths of his coat and downs the elixir even as he continues to cast. He casts again and again, layering them one on top of the other, until the sea serpent is bathed in amber light.

He released the Barrier, downs another elixir and equips the Gravira, casting five consecutive spells at Leviathan’s head. The sea serpent howls in enraged protest at the first spell, but by the fourth can do nothing more than groan deeply. Leviathan struggles against the magic, and he has to pump more and more energy into the spell, in hopes of overpowering it.

His vision blurs and darkens, but he clenches the materia tighter between his fingers. It’s going to work. It will work, because he cannot afford for it to fail.

 _Hold_ , he thinks, watching Leviathan undulate, sending tremors across the ground. _Hold_.

There—just for a second, a moment, the only pause he needs—Leviathan stills, exhausted. The Barrier shudders and flashes with its own reflected light, but it does not shatter. He can feel the warping effect of Gravira from where he stands.

“Thunder,” his tongue is heavy and dry and clumsy, but he trips over the syllables, building them into a frenzy. He can hardly see for the blood in his eyes and everything is trembling, but he presses on, spell after spell, until it feels as though the magic is scraping the marrow from his bones, “Thunder, Thundara, Thundara, Thundaga, _Thundaga_ , _**Thundaga!**_ ”

Lightning falls.

* * *

Everything is trembling. Leviathan has long since stopped shaking the Plate, but everything is still rattling with fine tremors. _He’s_ trembling.

Oh.

He can see his hands shaking. He thinks. His vision keeps sliding in and out of focus and a heavy black fuzziness creeps and recedes in the corners of his eyes. His head is throbbing, pounding away in a clumsy staccato.

It is quiet, but for the cloying smell of heat and energy.

Leviathan is unmoving and gargantuan even at rest, draped like an enormous mountain of scales. With a sound like wind against stone, gentle green rises from blackened flesh. The Lifestream sounds like soft breaths and distant song.

There is water everywhere, and ice, and huge chunks of broken concrete and brick. The streets are eerie and silent; the only sound is the faint groan of metal drifting up from below. He wonders idly if the Plates will hold.

He hopes Zack and Angeal and Genesis have fared well in their battles. He hopes Aerith and Nanaki are alright.

 _I’m sorry_ , he means to say. He might say it. He’s not sure. He hasn’t been sure in a long while. Not since that day, the day he first read the name JENOVA. Perhaps even before then. Perhaps he has never been sure.

Everything hurts, even worse than Nibelheim. Even worse than the labs, than Reunion. He can’t remember the last time he felt so numb, so cold, so aching and empty. He couldn’t cast another spell if he tried, can’t even _feel_ how empty his reserves are.

His legs are numb. His deadened arm burns. The asphalt is soaked beneath him, wet dust and rubble sticking to his hands. His head lolls and he watches Leviathan wisp up into green and fade away. Another summons lost, he supposes.

 _I’m sorry. I just—wanted to stop_.

She doesn’t answer, at first. She just folds Herself around him like She had once—twice? how many times now?—before, all smooth, quiet greens and gentle voices. So many voices. Like bells chiming in the wind.

Masamune shudders in his hand, and then falls away into sparks and splinters of metal and light and leather.

The clouds are gone. The sky is blue; not bright, like a summer day thick with heat, but still clear and wide. He sees, somehow, the distant hum of the Planet. The Lifestream is swirling, twirling, spinning, wide strands of green and light coiled up together, splitting apart. There are oceans, and there is land, and there is the Lifestream, holding it all together. He can taste the salt and sting of sea water, he can feel the soil, gritty and clinging to his skin, the light is cool and for all that it is bright, it does not burn.

The stars are not so distant. They are beautiful. He knows, somehow, their names and their stories and the spaces where light used to be and isn’t, or where dark used to be and has now fled. That star, there, was called the Priestess, who held life between her hands. And all along there, the gamut of Warriors who by turns saved and failed her. There were Adversaries, countless, who were spread in the night sky immortal, for their cunning and ambition.

There are stars beyond them, and even more beyond. He can see the effulgent wisps of color and light, like magic through water.

And then, closer. Smaller.

Beneath the water, there is life. With scales and gills and teeth. Beneath the dirt, there is life. With chitin and mandibles and teeth. All around, there is life. Skin, and hair and teeth and eyelashes that flutter and lips that purse and the scent of human musk, of breathing, existing, _living_.

Coming and going. There and then not. Not and then there.

See?

Oh.

 _Oh_.

It was so beautiful…

She is still so warm, so kind. Careful, cautious. Unsure. Hovering and undulating around him, not knowing what to do. Be he doesn’t mind; he doesn’t know any better himself.

**Good. You have done well.**

He had barely done it at all. He thinks of Masamune; a Sacred, Legendary blade shattering into light and pieces. The sparks had stung his fingers. If he were to look at his hands, they would likely be red and sore. Bloodied, from his pathetic volley against Leviathan; the summon is dead, another Legend desecrated by his hands, and—

 **Good** , she insists. Firmly, almost tangible. Warm and smooth, like Zolom leather and Chocobo down.

The sky is _so_ blue, like someone’s eyes (someone… he knew them, he knew the exact shade of those eyes, narrowed and defiant and—), like the taste of freedom on his tongue, the night he killed—the night he freed—the night he died, the very first time.

(Who? Had he not killed himself, freed himself, died himself? Or had he once tasted freedom in the freedom of others? Hadn’t he? _Had_ he?)

Everything was green, except the sky, which was blue. Not bright, but still clear. He feels heavy—so heavy, with the weight of his every not-death, not-life hanging heavy around his collarbone, with the blood on his hands—but even so. He knows what he has to do.

Hadn’t he done it once before, when Cloud—eyes so blue, like the wide sky before he curled the greying storm in overhead—had struck him down, that magnificent Fusion Blade striking him from all sides? He’d failed Mother, had failed one Brother and lost to the other, but even as the blood tickled his throat and bubbled, the sky had opened up, an explosion of spiraling, effulgent green. And a patient smile.

 _Yes_ , she says, softer now—or is it that he could not hear Her so well? He strains to hear anything at all, even Leviathan slowly fading away into light and peace—almost loving. She says it again, _Yes._

He flings his good hand out with the last of his strength, so feeble, fingers straining. His hand shakes and falters. Everything hurts. He has to reach. He _has_ to.

He reaches _up_ —

—and fingers curl around his, deft and strong. They pull him closer. They are light and love and warmth and all the good things that he has never had, had never known.

They pull him up, they pull him _close_ —

—and She cradles him, so hesitantly, and it makes his heart stutter and his throat burn. She bears his weight and whispers.

_rest. you have done well._

He closes his eyes.

* * *

> _I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to_
> 
> _draw from them a_
> 
> _single word: Home_
> 
> Mahmoud Darwish, _I Belong There_
>
>> **Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just wanna give a huge and heartfelt thank you to every person who's read, commented, bookmarked and left kudos on this fic!! y'all have really made writing this fic worth it.
> 
>  **EDIT:** although this is the end of _unfortunately, it was paradise_ , there are three codas about zack, yuffie, aerith & nanaki that are being written to wrap up the series. updates can be found on [my writing tumblr](https://manymouths.tumblr.com), and the we are no heroes series has its own tag [here](https://manymouths.tumblr.com/tagged/we-are-no-heroes-series)


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